Keynote Address: AIDS in the United Kingdom

Abstract

A sound public health policy has to be based on scientific knowledge about the disease in question. So I am going to start with a few words which place the situation about AIDS in the United Kingdom in context and in perspective. The principal epidemiological effects of the outbreak of HIV infection are well known to everyone here. The key features which make control difficult are that the infection is spread predominantly, at any rate in the United Kingdom, by sexual transmission and that there is a period of infectivity which lasts months, years, or is possibly life-long in persons who are usually unaware that they are infectious. Of course percutaneous and perinatal transmission also occurs. And if we link these features with the facts that the infection is potentially fatal, that there is no effective vaccination or treatment in sight, and that the groups most at risk are to a substantial extent stigmatized and alienated, we have a terrible spectacle and an immensely complex set of problems to solve.