NEW cases of HIV among heterosexuals in Britain are now, for the first time, more than double the new cases among homosexuals.

The number of heterosexuals found to have the virus, which leads to Aids, has risen by almost 50 per cent over the past year; the number of cases among homosexuals has risen by 6 per cent, according to the Health Protection Agency.

Almost all the increase among heterosexuals is a result of immigration from Africa, and the sharp rise is expected to fuel calls for the Government to adopt Australian-style health tests for immigrants. The agency gave warning of evidence that heterosexual HIV cases, which are at epidemic levels in Africa, are spreading in Britain.

In the first six months of this year there were 1,094 newly diagnosed cases of HIV among heterosexuals, up from 761 cases at the same time last year — a rise of 44 per cent. The number of new cases among homosexuals was 528, up from 498. Both figures are expected to rise as late-reported cases are officially notified.

Nine out of ten heterosexual cases had been acquired overseas, and of those nine out of ten had been acquired in Africa — almost all by immigrants to Britain as opposed to British people acquiring infection on a foreign trip.

The number of cases arriving from Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia is also rising, the agency said, but almost all the growth was from Africa, with about 2,500 cases imported last year. “This disparity is due to the very high HIV prevalences in many African countries, (and) the historic links between the UK and Africa,” the agency said in its Communicable Disease Report.

The number of HIV cases had stayed steady throughout the 1990s, with cases among homosexuals massively outnumbering those among heterosexuals. However, rising immigration from Africa led to the number of heterosexual cases rising rapidly. They overtook the number of homosexual cases in 1999.

Many hospitals say that their sexual health clinics are overwhelmed and underfunded. “Sexual health clinics are a shambles; they aren’t able to cope,” Dr Colm O’Mahoney, of the Association of Genito-Urinary Medicine, said.

Cases of other sexually transmitted disease are also rising, and there is alarm that complacency among homosexuals is also leading to the resurgence of cases. The number of cases from injecting drug users has halved as a result of needle exchange schemes.

Britain has until recently avoided a heterosexual HIV epidemic, with only about 50 cases of HIV being caught each year through heterosexual sex. But the Health Protection Agency said that the number in Britain infected by African immigrants had risen from 17 in 1993 to 153 in 2002.

Britain’s African community was bearing the brunt of this and efforts had to be made to contain the problem, it said. “There is some evidence of an increase in heterosexual transmissions within the UK from those who acquired the infection in Africa. Sustaining programmes to limit the spread within and from these African communities are of great importance.”

The number of babies who acquired HIV from their mothers has risen from 20 in the first half of last year to 36 in the first half of this, despite HIV tests being offered to all pregnant women. “One reason for this is the growing number of women moving to the UK when already infected, bringing in children born elsewhere who have not benefited from antenatal HIV prophylaxis,” the agency said.

The Cabinet Office, Home Office and Health Department are looking into whether pre-immigration health checks would curb the imported epidemic. The study is focused on whether people with HIV who cannot afford treatment in their own country are choosing to come here.

A director of a charity said that since it started supporting HIV-positive immigrants he had realised that many were coming just to get free treatment. “I became aware that we were supporting the better-off urban African. And it became obvious that a good 50 per cent knew their condition before they set off,” he said.

Dr O’Mahoney said: “The UK should help people to be able to get treatment in their own country.”

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