Having anal intercourse with an infected partner is the most likely way of catching AIDS, and 80 per cent of British cases so far have been male homosexuals. The second most common way of contracting the disease is through infected blood. Almost a quarter of Britain's haemophiliac population now carry HIV because they have been injected with the clotting agent collected from infected blood. HIV in the blood may also be transmitted on infected needles, and drug addicts are the third most highly at risk group of the population. To become HIV positive you do not have to be homosexual or promiscuous, a drug addict or a haernophiliac.
Heterosexuals are also at risk.
Even a heterosexual in a steady relationship stands the risk of contracting the disease if their partner has been infected in a previous relationship. Therefore when embarking on any new relationship, it is safest to wear a condom. In men the urethra, along which urine passes from the bladder, is infected, and there is sometimes pain on urinating and a thick discharge from the penis within a week after infection. In homosexual men the rectum may be infected, with the possibility of irritation and discharge from the anus. In women, gonorrhoea infects the cervix, urethra and rectum, and, as with men, there may be discharge and pain on urinating.