HIV rise linked to Caribbean visits

The number of people who become infected with HIV while visiting the Caribbean is on the rise and is causing concern among Aids experts in London.

Consultants at Guy's and St Thomas' Trust in London saw more than 50 people last year who had some connection with the Caribbean, either having been over there themselves or having a partner who had recently come back from the islands.

The numbers are small at the moment compared with cases among African patients, which make up between 50 to 60 per cent of the caseload in the two London hospitals, but they are worrying doctors.

Latest figures from the Public Health Laboratory Service (PHLS) show that for the first time last year, there were more newly-diagnosed cases of HIV among African immigrants than gay men. There were 4,163 people found to be HIV-positive, of whom 1,338 were homosexuals and 1,500 were heterosexuals from Africa. The number of new cases is putting some of the London clinics under pressure.

Dr Caroline Bradbeer, physician at St Thomas' said: "We now look after 1,200 people with HIV and that number rises by 15 per cent a year. There are now more new diagnoses in south London than any other part of the UK.

"We are starting to see increasing numbers whose HIV has come through a connection with the Caribbean. Here we have the seeds of a new epidemic, fuelled by deprivation, the high prevalence of gonorrhoea and chlamydia, which could sweep quickly through our large local population of British-born Afro-Caribbeans."

She said that many of those infected had been out to the Caribbean for several weeks to visit a relative, and found themselves relatively well-off because of exchange rates. "They have a wonderful time, they mix with local people and some of them end up having unprotected sex."

Like other doctors in her field, she would like to see an institute devoted to treating sexual diseases set up in south London, to meet the enormous need for care. Her walk-in clinic, designed to see 9,000 people a year, now deals with 35,000 people, and King's College Hospital also faces the same pressure.

But there is also the difficulty for consultants over whom they are supposed to treat. Many of the patients are in the country visiting relatives when they go for a check-up in British clinics and are not legally entitled to treatment.