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Tue Jun 1, 8:39 PM ET
Ben Townley, Gay.com U.K.
SUMMARY: As many as a third of U.K. HIV (news - web sites)-positive gay men do not know they are infected, according to researchers who are calling on improvements to the government's sexual health policies.
As many as a third of U.K. HIV-positive gay men do not know they are infected, according to researchers who are calling on improvements to the government's sexual health policies in order to stop the continuing increase in transmissions.
Writing in the Sexually Transmitted Infections journal, researchers from the Royal Free and University College medical schools said that in a study of 1,206 gay men, 10.9 percent were HIV positive -- although a third of this number were unaware they were infected.
The researchers also found that this corresponds with an increase in unprotected sex.
In a linked study, the researchers interviewed 8,000 men between 1996 and 2000, and found that the number of men having anal sex without a condom in the last 12 months had jumped from 30 percent to 42 percent.
"A high proportion of HIV-positive men continue to engage in high-risk sexual behavior after diagnosis, emphasizing the need for focused health promotion programs to reduce the risk of HIV transmission to others," the researchers said in the journal.
Speaking to Gay.com U.K., Terrence Higgins Trust's head of policy and public affairs, Lisa Power, said that the figures should be used to force the government to update its sexual health policy, in order to facilitate the testing process and encourage people to come forward for HIV tests.
"This information is not new," she said.
"We need sexual health to be made a government and local health priority; we need improved sex education for all young people; and we need more targeted campaigns to encourage people in HIV high-prevalence communities, like gay men, to consider the benefits of testing.
"We are doing a great deal already, but more could be done to halt the spread of HIV and reverse the rise in all sexually transmitted infections in the U.K."
The study follows figures released from the Health Protection Agency (HPA) earlier this year, which suggested that HIV transmissions had increased by 20 percent across the country in 2003.
"Always forgive your enemies...nothing annoys them quite so much." Oscar Wilde
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Timmy, maybe this should go on your sexual health pages... 
