Luxembourg, 11/09/2002 (Agence Europe) - According to research published by Eurostat on 10 September, 8210 new cases of AIDS were reported in the EU in 2001, 11% down on 2000. The cumulative total since 1981 has reached 235,000 cases. The annual AIDS incidence rate (number of cases per million inhabitants) in the EU was estimated at 21.8 in 2001, compared with 24.4 in 2000. 1994 was the turning point in the annual incidence of AIDS in the EU, when 24,889 new cases (three times higher than 2001) were reported. With regard to transmission categories, 39.4% of total EU AIDS cases in the period 1981-2001 resulted from intravenous drug users, 32.6% from homo/bisexual male contact and 17.6% from heterosexual contact. Since the start of the epidemic, there has been a change in the characteristics of AIDS cases. Compared with 1985, the proportion of cases due to homo/bisexual male contacts has fallen significantly while those resulting from heterosexual contact have risen sharply. The proportion due to intravenous drug users has decreased in recent years. The 25-39 age group recorded two-thirds of total AIDS cases in the EU: 19.1% in the 25-29 age group, 26.6% within the 30-34 age group and 18.9% in the 35-39 age group. The average age at diagnosis has increased over time, from less than 30 years in 1998 to 38.7 years in 2001.
The Statistical Office of the European Communities' study reveals that Spain and Portugal are the countries most affected. Among the Member States, in 2001, 2 297 new cases were registered in Spain, 1 681 in Italy, 1 527 in France and 1 044 in Portugal. Spain also registered the highest total number of cases reported since 1981 (63 000), followed by France (55 000) and Italy (50 000). The number of new cases has greatly decreased since the mid-90s in all Member States except Portugal, where the number of new cases has continued to grow. The EU average incidence rate of 21.8 in 2001 conceals major differences between Member States. Portugal recorded the highest number, with 105.8 cases per million inhabitants, followed by Spain (58.0). The lowest values were observed in the Netherlands (2.8) and Finland (3.3). In the EU, the injecting drug user category has fallen from a peak of 43.7% of reported cases in 1996 to 33.2% in 2001. The homo/bisexual male category, which exceeded 60% in the first years of the epidemic, fell to 19.6% in 2001. Conversely, the proportion of AIDS cases due to heterosexual transmission has grown steadily from 8.9% in 1985 to 36.5% in 2001. The main transmission categories vary widely between EU Member States. Injecting drug users represented 63.4% of total AIDS cases in the period 1981-2001 in Spain and 59.2% in Italy but only 3.8% in Greece and 3.9% in Finland. For homo/bisexual male contacts, the proportion was over 60% in the Netherlands (67.4%), Denmark (64.2%), Germany (63.5%), United Kingdom (63.4%) and Finland (62.7%), and around 15% in Spain (13.7%), Italy and Portugal (15.6% each). Heterosexual contacts accounted for 45.4% of total AIDS cases in Belgium and 27.8% in Portugal, but only 8.6% in Germany and 13.3% in Spain.