BACK
Where it all began: the UK's first HIV outbreak
Roy Robertson, GP, Muirhouse, Edinburgh
Abstract
In 1982 HIV infection was introduced into an actively injecting drug using population in the East coast of Scotland. Edinburgh and Dundee were affected and subsequent research showed that a rapid epidemic
occurred involving several thousand individuals. This was a unique situation at the time and had only been shown to have happened in a few other centres, New York City, northern Italy and to a lesser extent Amsterdam.
The presentation will describe the conditions giving rise to this epidemic and the consequences and impact of the event. The public health and clinical medical response set a trend which has persisted and was the driving force behind harm minimisation and needle exchange. Several studies of HIV transmission among heterosexual partners, deaths due to HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C prevalence will be discussed.
TOP
Biography
Roy Robertson has been a GP at Muirhouse Medical Group since 1980 and a senior lecturer at Edinburgh University since 1990 and a Reader in the Division of Community Health Sciences since 2002.
He has carried out several projects and collaborated with others on the topics of Injecting drug use, HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C. Current projects are following up the early cases and survivors of the HIV epidemic and clinical trials of alternative treatments for drug dependency.
| 
