NEARLY 5,000 people needed treatment for HIV in the North West last year – a ten per cent rise on 2006.
Some 584 of the region’s residents discovered they had the disease during 2007, taking the total number of sufferers to 4,950.
Nationally, there was a six per cent increase in the number living with the virus.
Ewan Jenkins, the regional manager of the sexual health charity Terrence Higgins Trust, believes more than 20,000 from the UK suffer from HIV but don’t know it and is urging people to get tested.
“Not only is this dangerous to their own health, but they are more likely to pass the virus on than someone who has been diagnosed,” he said.
“A reluctance to test for HIV also means that 31 per cent of people diagnosed last year were diagnosed very late – perhaps years after infection.
"Their immune systems have already been damaged and, unless they start immediate treatment, they will be vulnerable to a host of serious illnesses.”
According to the charity homosexual men and African people are most likely to have undiagnosed HIV in the UK.
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