New AIDS cases dropped 11 percent in the 15-nation European Union in 2001, but Portugal bucked the trend with an AIDS rate five times the EU average.
There were 8,210 AIDS cases in the 15 countries in 2001, down from 9,197 in 2000.
Portugal has 106 AIDS cases per million inhabitants. Spain is second with 58 per million. At the other end of the spectrum, The Netherlands has only 2.8 cases per million residents and Finland 3.3 cases.
There have been 235,000 AIDS cases in the EU since HIV was discovered—63,000 of them in Spain and 55,000 in France.
Throughout the EU, a smaller percentage of cases in recent years are being attributed to gay sex and more cases are being linked to heterosexual sex.