UK newspapers are already running headlines on these record numbers of HIV infections: 7734 new cases for 2007 alone, nearly 1000 more than current estimates for France. (Though has to be stated that we do have our doubts about the reliability of the French stats)

As elsewhere, the groups most affected by this resurgence are gay men and migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa. Of 10 recent infections, 4 are from liaisons between men.

It’s estimated that 77,000 people are now living with HIV in the UK, and a quarter of these do not know their HIV status.

In 2007 nearly half of the 400,000 cases of sexually transmitted diseases occurred in 16-24 year olds; and one new HIV infection in ten occurred within the same age group.

The figures for 2008 are sadly no better. Homosexual men remain the single group most affected by Aids. Even if the number of recent contaminations is slightly lower than in 2007 (7370 new cases), the proportion of homosexuals and bisexuals (38%) is still significant.

Just think, five percent of the population are now responsible for nearly forty percent of current new infections. As a result, these figures are, for the second year in a row, the highest ever recorded since statistics began in the eighties. During the last ten years, the number of annual new infections has doubled.

Ten years ago, when some were predicting such catastrophic scenarios, no one wanted to believe it.

Since the beginning of the noughties, the UK, Germany and Holland have gone from being examples of how prevention should be done, to providing early warning of the next public health catastrophe. The media Europe-wide are beginning to wake up to the stark symbol of a United Kingdom previously relatively privileged as far as infection rates were concerned, rocketing to the top of the infection charts.

This lowering of the guard can be explained in many ways.

As far as the gay community is concerned, many will have already noted the unusual behaviour of the Brits: their lack of education about new therapies, their often poor compliance in taking their medicine, the heavy influence of alcohol and recreational drugs upon their behaviour. They’re not known to be exactly conscientious as far as HIV is concerned, but then it’s not so hard to understand: historically, Aids was relatively contained in the eighties and nineties.

At Act Up Paris at the beginning of the nineties, it was often said that there were more HIV positive men in Paris than in the whole of England - and it was true.

The fact is that England is fast becoming a huge field trial of a prevention strategy gone wrong. Used to hearing about Aids without ever seeing it, England’s gays have developed a mental map in which HIV doesn’t really figure. At any rate, nothing is going to stop them from having a real good time. And by real, I mean of course, without condoms.

The English, the Dutch, and the Germans quickly adopted the new strategy of risk reduction. Fuck without condoms as long as you didn’t come... don’t actually swallow the sperm and you’ll probably be Ok... No need to bother with condoms if both partners have the same HIV status, eh? Etc. Etc.

For the last two years their campaigns have informed them that TasP (Treatment as Prevention) means that they can pretty much forget condoms, the new antiretrovirals are, after all a success, those with HIV can’t really infect you anymore.

If new treatments are making those with HIV less infectious, the changes in personal protection strategies that people are likely to make aren’t hard to deduce. Anyone who goes to Berlin will give you the score - it’s pretty tough to find a guy there who wants to use a condom.

The question is: if the Brits are already following a risk reduction strategy and TasP, then why are infection rates rocketing?

Risk reduction promises that we are going to be able to live our sexuality more freely without the inconvenience of condoms, whilst still limiting the risks of infection.

TasP implies that the vast majority who follow their treatment are no longer infectious, or at least, are far less so.

But if the UK has 77,000 HIV positive individuals and France apparently 120,000, where does the difference in the rate of new cases come from?

Or, to put the question differently, where is this highly infectious HIV coming from to infect so many new individuals? Is it coming from the remaining 40% of HIV positive people unaware of their status? But the proportion is roughly the same in France...

Maybe it’s coming from positive guys who, refusing to follow any treatment are highly infectious? Perhaps from a core of barebackers with multiple partners - the people no one wants to talk about anymore because the subject is sooo last-year (even if these guys are ever more visible on the chat sites.)

Some say that the health system is better in France, maybe that’s true, maybe that explains why the virus is better contained.  But the UK does have a network of gay STD clinics far more developed than in France.

The answer is that the Brits are becoming infected, despite a reduced epidemiological reserve, because for the last three years, the prevention charities have been feeding them the same confused messages that will soon be transplanted to France.

The French prevention strategy remains for the moment firmly based on condom use. But this strategy is in the process of changing in a paradigm shift unseen since the beginning of the epidemic.

We must not underestimate the effects of these changes. When Metro titles with “Britain has the most new HIV cases in Europe” that has an effect on the gay community for sure, but it also affects the way that community is perceived by others in a sort of “What the fuck do you think you’re up to guys?” kind of way.

When the agencies and the media state that “those who are HIV positive and under treatment are at significantly reduced risk of transmitting the virus” it implies that the source of HIV is drying up.

Only that’s not how epidemics evolve. The proof is precisely the explosion of new infections in the UK and the USA.

Those who become infected now will have to face a new shame: that of having contracted the virus when everything around them implied that it wouldn’t happen.

There was already the guilt of having become HIV positive, now they will have to add the fact of being a supposed medical “exception”. “How did I manage to catch it when everyone’s viral load is so low?” “But I thought no-condom was supposed to be safe-ish these days.” “So are we or aren’t we in a country where most people’s viral load is undetectable?”

Sad disillusionment for those who believed the words of the Aids charities so smug at having managed to communicate such a subtle, complex message so efficiently.

In fact, we’ve just gone from, “Condom, of course,” to “Condom, maybe.”

Translated by Nick Alexander.