The government is failing to meet the needs of people living with HIV/Aids in the UK or protect their human rights, despite its impressive record in fighting the pandemic abroad, says a report published today by the National Aids Trust.
HIV infection levels in the UK are still rising. Last year there were 7,750 diagnoses, the most in one year. There are more than 40,000 people receiving treatment in the UK but it is estimated that another 20,000 are infected but do not yet know it - and could be in danger of unwittingly passing on the virus.
The trust says the political commitment to tackling the disease at home has waned, even as the government has won plaudits internationally for its action overseas. The UK epidemic is fuelled by unsafe sexual behaviour among gay men and migration from high-prevalence countries in Africa. Most of the rise in infection is now in the heterosexual community.
"This poses fresh and urgent challenges for the government and the health service, including mounting treatment costs, an urgent need to invest in effective HIV prevention, and a requirement that HIV services are freshly designed to meet the needs of African communities in the UK," says the report.
Funds for warning about the dangers of HIV have stagnated or declined, it says, and there is evidence of greater public ignorance about infection routes. Money that should be going to sexual health clinics is being diverted by primary care trusts to plug deficits, it alleges.
"The UK government is failing to accord HIV in the UK the necessary priority. At present its response lacks any real political engagement," the report says.
Neither Tony Blair nor any cabinet minister has made a high-level speech on HIV in the UK in the past two years, and the infection was not discussed in the public health white paper in 2004.
"The government needs to mirror its impressive international statements in its policies back at home. We need to promote the health needs and human rights of the most vulnerable in the face of populist prejudice," said Deborah Jack, chief executive of the trust.