The number of people living with HIV in Oxfordshire has more than doubled in the past nine years, figures show.

Latest figures from the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust show there are 458 people with the immune system disease, compared to 186 in 2002 – a rise of 146 per cent.

Doctors say this is partly down to a greater awareness of symptoms leading to diagnosis, along with better treatment that prolongs the onset of deadly AIDs.

But while HIV was once seen as a death sentence, researchers at the University of Bristol say life expectancy for an average 20-year-old infected with HIV has risen from 30 years in 1996-9 to almost 46 years in 2006-8.

Jake North (not his real name) was told he would not live past 30 when he was diagnosed aged 21 after a night of unsafe sex.

The 37-year-old East Oxford resident, who is bi-sexual, said: “Friends enjoyed the risk of unsafe sex and I decided to try it. I didn’t know the guy, or even his name, and it was just one time – but that one time gave me HIV.”

He said: “Three months after that night I contracted a rash and flu-like symptoms and I went for an early test.

“When the doctor took me somewhere different from normal to give me my results I knew it was bad news. And when he said I was HIV positive I just went numb.

“I was 21 and it seemed like my life was over.”

The news sent him careering into drug abuse, using “club drugs” including ecstasy, speed and acid, of which he is now clean.

Seven years after diagnosis he told his parents he had HIV. Mr North said: “They were distressed and angry. But they and my friends have given me so much support.”

He takes an Atripla pill each day and says, while this combats the disease, it causes side-effects including depression, fatigue, low appetite and stomach problems.

He said: “I no longer feel HIV controls my life or defines me but it still makes me mad people are taking risks and contracting HIV. I see it as a responsibility of mine to warn people and even scare people into safe sex.”

Mr North, who is single and has no children, added he vowed when he was diagnosed that no one would ever get HIV from him.

The latest Oxfordshire figures are for March 2010 from the Health Protection Agency which show 222 people aged 15 to 59 were accessing HIV related care in Oxford last year.

This was 83 in Cherwell, 55 in South Oxfordshire, 44 in Vale of White Horse and 40 in West Oxfordshire.

Sarah Rowland-Jones, a consultant in infectious diseases at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital, said drugs mean patients can live to a near-normal life expectancy.

Most cases are from gay sex among young men, she said.

Yet many will dismiss flu-like symptoms which occur three weeks after infection and live for many years not knowing they have the disease, she added.

She said: “Maybe 20 years ago there was a big campaign and everybody was really careful. Now maybe people are thinking it is not that bad, it can be treated so let’s not worry about it.”

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) attacks the immune system and weakens its defence to disease and infection. It increases risk of serious disease, such as cancer, and there are no cures or vaccines yet available. Since the 1990s, treatments have been developed which enable most sufferers to lead relatively normal lives. The virus is spread through exchange of bodily fluids, most commonly through unprotected sex, but also sharing needles or from mother to baby. If the immune system fails and the person develops a life-threatening condition the virus becomes Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (Aids). But the term ‘Aids’ is now thought of as too general and many specialists call it ‘advanced or late-stage HIV’.