The committee’s report suggests that HIV screening should be a standard procedure for any patient registering with a GP surgery, with the option to opt out. The committee also recommended that home testing kits for HIV be legalised, provided that support mechanisms were in place for those who tested themselves and found out that they were infected.

More effective drugs are extending life expectancy in patients who have contracted HIV.

However, there are now three times as many people in the UK being treated for HIV infection as there were ten years ago, and the cost of treating HIV has risen from £500 million in 2006-2007 to £760 million three years later.

Lord Fowler, who ran the ‘Don’t Die of Ignorance’ awareness campaign in the 1980s, said that there was a danger of falling into a “false sense of security”, simply because the mortality rates from HIV infection have fallen.

The Terrence Higgins Trust, a leading HIV/AIDS charity, have suggested that a rising cost for treatment of HIV is to be expected. However, they agree that the cost is placing a huge strain on the NHS, and part of this cost could be avoided.

The House of Lords committee, Terrence Higgins Trust and Department of Health agree that sexually active people should always use a condom, and this message should prevail in the prevention of HIV infection.

Scientists in America have made a breakthrough in the understanding of schizophrenia and how genetics may affect the condition.

Schizophrenia is estimated to affect 1% of the population. Approximately 10% of people who have the condition have genetically inherited it from a parent.

A research team from the Columbia University Medical Center in New York have analysed the genetic code of over 200 people. Not all of the samples were from people who suffered from schizophrenia. The samples where the patient had suffered from the condition were shown to have defects in a variety of genes.

The researchers discovered that there were 40 different genes which could be linked to schizophrenia. They have suggested that this may help explain the large amount of people around the world who are affected by the condition.

Researchers now believe that this study indicates that genetics play a big part in the disease, even if the condition has not been inherited from the parent. Mutations occur in DNA when eggs and sperm are made and the means that people do not have an exact copy of their parents’ DNA.

The study showed that these new mutations appear in over half of the cases of schizophrenia where the patient had no family history of the condition.

Professor Bin Xu, a researcher in the study, indicated that this study has ‘fundamentally transformed’ the understanding of the disease. He added: “It is thought that the complexity of the brain and the large number of genes involved provided a big target for mutation.