MORE than a third of men in the Capital with HIV do not know they have it, a new study has suggested.
A group of academics carried out 600 tests in the city's universities and gay bars. Of the 33 men who were found to be positive, 12 were unaware they had the condition.
The news comes as NHS Lothian launches a new HIV awareness campaign using the
initiative to warn gay men, and others who have a wide range of sexual partners, against complacency, and comparing a possible outbreak to the epidemic of the 1980s caused by drug addicts sharing needles.
Dutch-based Wolters Kluwer Health carried out the study in the Capital and produced the survey results with the help of numerous experts and academics.
They worked in five gay bars over a number of weeks. They took mouth swabs from 599 men, and from the results, statisticians concluded a little over a third of HIV cases are undiagnosed – a figure similar to that alluded to by NHS bosses in the past.
They warned that those who do have HIV were not being as careful as they ought to be, which in turn increased the risk of passing the infection on.
The report read: "A high proportion of the HIV-positive men were undiagnosed and not receiving benefits of clinical care.
"Clinics should proactively offer testing to reduce undiagnosed HIV."
The campaign will promote the use of condoms. It will also encourage regular HIV testing and tackle the myths surrounding the condition.
From this week, 20 buses will carry the campaign message, while 200 posters will appear elsewhere on public transport.
Specially designed postcards and posters will be delivered to gay bars, GP surgeries and libraries.
The timing of the initiative also coincides with World Aids Day on December 1.
Jim Sherval, a public health specialist for NHS Lothian, said: "The HIV Comeback Tour is now a well established and effective Lothian campaign highlighting the re-emergence of HIV as a continuing sexual health risk for men who have sex with men.
"World Aids Day is a day to combat prejudice and remind people to protect themselves. It seemed absolutely right that we should bring both campaigns together."
The health board co-ordinates the campaign with Edinburgh-based Gay Men's Health, whose spokesman Steve O'Donnell added: "The key messages of the HIV Comeback Tour are that people should get tested for HIV and use condoms when having sex.
"In many cases HIV transmission occurs within relationships, so we are reminding gay men that it is dangerous simply to assume that neither they nor their partner has HIV or that unprotected sex will be safe."
IMPORTANCE OF EARLY DETECTIONAROUND 100 new cases of HIV emerge every year in the Lothians.
But it is the ones that remain undetected that worry health chiefs and charities most.
If recent studies are to be believed, it would mean more than 30 people a year are infected with HIV and are unaware. This means not only are they missing out on the best treatment to prolong their lives, but they could be unwittingly infecting others. While life expectancy with the infection is better than it ever was, health chiefs are quick to remind at-risk people that it will eventually take their life.
Life expectancy varies drastically depending on how early it is detected, treatment and where in the world they live. Generally speaking, a 20-year-old male who contracts HIV but receives the best treatment and lives in Edinburgh should survive another 40 years.
It is estimated that 5000 people have been infected with HIV in Scotland. Around 60 per cent of those infected pick it up while abroad or are foreign and living in Scotland.
In the 1980s is was widely regarded as only a problem for needle-sharing drug addicts, but it has become overwhelmingly transmitted through sexual intercourse.
The full article contains 665 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
