Dakers goes for sexual health checkup on World Aids Day

12.00.00am GMT Fri 3rd Dec 2004

Andrew Dakers visits the Sexual Health Clinic at West Middlesex Hospital

In the UK Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) are on the increase at an alarming rate. 53,000 adults are now living with the HIV virus. More than a quarter - 27% - do not know they have the infection, which could be as many as 14,300 people. Chlamydia rose by 9% last year, and syphilis increased by 28%.

The global statistics are even scarier:

· A 15 year old boy in Botswana will with 80% probability die as a result of AIDS

· Up to 40 million of children will be orphaned by HIV/AIDS by 2010.

· 9½ new infections every minute (5 million/year)

· 50% new infections in young people (15-24 yr.

Last week, UNAIDS released an update report on the AIDS epidemic in the world, with a special focus on women.

· The total number of people living with HIV rose in 2004 to reach its highest level ever: an estimated 39.4 million, including 2.2 million children.

· Almost 5 million people acquired the infection in 2004

· The number of people living with HIV has been rising in every region, with the steepest increase in East Asia and in Eastern Europe & Central Asia.

Andrew Dakers Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Brentford & Isleworth said:

"World AIDS day is important to me for a number of reasons. Most importantly I have friends and former colleagues who are living with AIDS/ HIV today. Secondly, as recently selected Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Brentford & Isleworth, contributing to the fight against STDs, particularly AIDS/ HIV, is one of my personal goals."

"This year I have decided to mark World AIDs Day with a practical action. I am going for a sexual health check at my local hospital, the West Middlesex. I think it is always something we do with some reticence, if at all, but is the only way we will get a handle on these dreadful diseases. Whilst always a little worrying, as you wait for the results with some trepidation, it is so easy to go into a walk-in clinic at the local hospital, that I really had no excuse not to."

After visiting the clinic Andrew explained:

"The whole check-up took just over an hour to go through and the hospital staff are very patient and explain everything carefully."

"Most of the results take 10 days to come through, and I will have to return to the clinic to get these. However some of the results, for example gonorrhoea, come through during your first visit."