Aids case cost up to £1m. a patient

HIV/AIDS can cost Guernsey up to £1m. per patient. 'The prevention of a single onward transmission is estimated to save between £500,000 and £1m. in terms of individual health benefits and treatment costs combined,' said Sexual Health Clinic head Dr Nick King.

The average lifetime cost of HIV medication alone is between £135,000 and £181,000.

And Dr King warned that HIV/Aids was now predominantly a heterosexual disease.

'HIV/Aids is now a heterosexual disease worldwide, far more than it is a homosexual disease.

'The greatest risk of an onward transmission is still among homosexuals, but new cases are mainly seen among the heterosexual community.'

Eight people have died from Aids in Guernsey since the first recorded case in 1986. But increasing complacency could allow infection to spread more quickly here in the 21st century.

'There is diminishing awareness, to a great extent.

'Perhaps that originates from people thinking that HIV/Aids is curable. It is not.'

Dr King hoped the startling figures would give Guernsey a wake-up call. If they do not, the future treatment of HIV/Aids patients could be at risk.

'It is important that Guernsey addresses these needs - otherwise it is likely that patients in our community will have both the stigma and social isolation of the disease combined with inequality of their health-care provision.'

But, he said, HIV/Aids was just the tip of the sexual health iceberg here.

Dr King said that the 'steady increase' in gonorrhoea and chlamydia was an indicator of 'a decline in the sexual health of the community'. He blamed a growing tendency for people to sleep around.

'The reason is that people are having unprotected sex more frequently and with many more partners.'

People's promiscuity could mean that Guernsey was sitting on a sexual health time bomb.

'Sexually-transmitted infections cause considerable reproductive morbidity and poor health outcomes, including pelvic inflammatory disease, infertility, ectopic pregnancy, neo-natal disorders, cervical cancer and death.'

But treatment for sexual ill-health in Guernsey is excellent when compared to the UK.

It is normal for sexual-health clinics there to have waiting lists of up to four weeks.

'We always try to see patients who are asymptomatic inside 10 days. And for someone with symptoms, we like to see them within 24 hours.'

* In 2002, 11 people in Guernsey - nine men and two women - were registered as HIV positive.

Of the eight patients who have died since the disease was first recorded here, seven were men.