THE incidence of AIDS is stabilising throughout the European Union with the exception of Spain, Portugal and Italy, where intravenous drug use is escalating.
Figures published by the European Commission yesterday show that in the first nine months of last year 17,778 cases of full blown AIDS were diagnosed. For the full year of 1995, 23,818 cases were diagnosed.
Forty three per cent of new cases were associated with intravenous drug use.
The figures for 1995 show that Ireland - with 27 new cases diagnosed - is still at the bottom of the European league with Finland, both at 7.6 cases per million of their population. Spain reported 173 cases per million, France 90, and Italy 106. In the UK, 1,429 cases were diagnosed, or 24 per million.
By the end of last September, a total of 167,021 cases had been diagnosed in the European Union, and close to 550 in Ireland.
The EU's anti AIDS programme is the responsibility of the Irish Commissioner, Mr Padraig Flynn, who yesterday said progress in the field of treatment offers new hope to those infected, even though it is still too early to talk of cure.
"Until a safe and effective vaccine is developed, we have to consider that the only true defence against this terrible disease is prevention through information and education, through promoting sexual responsibility and through measures to reduce the risks run by drug addicts."
