Skip to main content

HIV Infection: Diagnosis

Question for Department of Health

UIN 43054, tabled on 18 July 2016

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many adults were newly diagnosed with HIV in (a) England, (b) each parliamentary constituency and (c) each local authority area in the most recent year for which figures are available.

Answered on

25 July 2016

Public Health England (PHE) has developed Fingertips, a rich source of indicators across a range of health and wellbeing themes that have been designed to support the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment and commissioning to improve health and wellbeing and reduce inequalities. The sexual and reproductive health profiles for local authorities can be found in the following link:

http://fingertips.phe.org.uk/profile/sexualhealth/data#page/9/gid/8000057/pat/6/par/E12000004/ati/101/are/E06000015

Data at parliamentary constituency level is not available for any measure as requested.

It is estimated that for 2014 (the most recent year for which figures are available) there are 103,700 people living with HIV (includes both diagnosed and undiagnosed infection) in the United Kingdom; a breakdown for England only is not available. Further breakdown by local authority is not available.

Table 1 below shows the number of people newly diagnosed with HIV, numbers of death in people with HIV, number people accessing HIV care and HIV testing in England and proportion of adults diagnosed with a cluster of differentiation 4 (CD4) count below 350 cells, for 2014.

England

New HIV diagnoses (all ages)

5,559

Deaths in people with HIV (all ages)

518

Accessing HIV care (all ages)

78,317

HIV tests performed in sexual health clinics (all ages) (2015)

1,129,456

HIV self-sampling service (all ages) (November 2015 – July 2016 only)

15,631

HIV tests performed in antenatal settings (all ages)

693,570

Proportion of people with CD4 count below 350 cells within 91 days of diagnosis (all ages)

40% (1,748/4415)

Note:

I. Data is not included on additional HIV tests undertaken in England such as on blood donors, tests conducted by general practitioners that are not on pregnant women, tests undertaken by private practitioners or pharmacies, etc.

II. New HIV diagnoses are not synonymous with new HIV infections; people can and do live with an undiagnosed HIV infection for many years before they are diagnosed.

III. The proportion of people diagnosed with a CD4 count.

IV. Numbers accessing care at the local authority level are restricted to age groups 15-59 years to be consistent with British HIV Association HIV testing guidelines.

V. Data on HIV testing in sexual health clinics represent the total number of HIV tests performed and not the number of people tested for HIV. HIV testing data exclude people accessing sexual health clinics located in England who are residents in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland or abroad.

VI. The figure presented for the HIV self-sampling service represents the total number of kits returned for testing and are provisional. Data are available from November 2015, when the service began to mid July 2016. Data presented are for period November 2015 to January 2016 available from conference presentation by Guerra et al 0O38:

http://www.bashh.org/documents/Events/Conference%202016/BASHH%20Conference%202016%20Abstract%20Book.pdf

Local Authority data are owned by local commissioners and not published nationally.

VII. Deaths include all-cause mortality, including non-HIV related deaths.