What these figures show is the extent to which HIV and AIDS remain highly concentrated within some population groups. They also show the extent to which newspaper reporting and commentary on these figures distorts the risk to the least vulnerable and draws attention away from the highest risks.

Whilst it may be correct to say that everyone is potentially at risk, the chances of the majority of heterosexual people meeting an HIV–positive sexual partner are very low. Similarly the claim 'each time you sleep with someone you sleep with all their previous partners' may be scary, but there's little evidence that HIV is currently being transmitted in the UK through lengthy chains of heterosexual partnerships as some health educators have claimed. If this was the case there would probably be much larger numbers of HIV–positive heterosexual men and women identified as HIV–positive. A PHLS investigation of 15 cases of second–generation transmission could find only one suspected case in which a chain of transmission could be demonstrated (Gilbart). It is unlikely that a radically different pattern holds true amongst the untested.

Whilst it is also true to say that knowing your partner may not protect heterosexual men and women from being infected, it will go some way to providing protection. In particular, knowing that your partner is likely to have had unprotected sex abroad, injected drugs or had sex with another man would be a useful indication of potential risk.

References

BBC ‘Born Abroad’ Database, 2005. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/uk/05/born_abroad/html/overview.stm

Gilbart V et al: Second generation heterosexual transmission of HIV-1 infection. CDR 2(5), 1992.

Home Office: Asylum statistics, fourth quarter, 2004. See http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs05/asylumq404.pdf