The number of British women with HIV is increasing at an alarming rate. Women's Editor Christen Pears talks to one who has been living with the disease for 11 years.

DIANE Brown used to be a nurse, she should have known what was happening. She should have realised something was wrong when her boyfriend suddenly started losing weight, when he started having night sweats so severe they had to change the sheets after only a few hours. He had a string of throat infections and he developed so many sores on his head he asked her to shave it for him.

"I should have recognised the symptoms, but I didn't, I just didn't. By the time he started to get ill it was too late anyway," she says.

Diane was diagnosed with HIV in August 1992 after being taken into hospital with a bacterial infection.

"I remember lying there and hearing the consultant saying something about possible HIV infection but it just didn't seem real. When I went for my results and I found out I was positive, I couldn't believe it.

"When I confronted my boyfriend about infecting me, he denied it. He was from Malawi. In African society, it's a taboo and people are shunned. He told everyone it was cancer. Even when he died, that's what his family thought it was."

A recent survey showed that the rate of HIV infection among UK women has risen sharply since 2000. Women now account for 33 per cent of HIV cases in this country, compared to 26 per cent in 2000. Worryingly, the UK, alongside Italy, now has the highest HIV infection rate among women in Europe.

The safe sex message is simply not getting through. Government statistics published earlier this month showed an enormous rate of infection among young women with sexually transmitted diseases, particularly chlamydia and gonorrhoea.

"Chlamydia is bad enough because it can make you infertile, but there are people out there being infected with HIV. They think it's something that only affects gay men but it doesn't. It's in heterosexual society and it's spreading. Look at me, I'm the proof," says Diane.

"You have to take responsibility when you have sex. When someone has AIDS they have symptoms, but you can't tell someone has HIV just by looking at them. If you saw me, you wouldn't know. All you would think was wrong was that I was having a bad hair day."

It's true. Her dark hair falls around her face in a mass of unruly curls but she looks well. She's funny and lively and talks non-stop.

Immediately after her diagnosis, however, she spent three years being angry, snapping at friends and family. Some of her friends refused to have anything to do with her and she sent her ten-year-old daughter from a previous relationship to live with her mother.

"I thought if anything happened to me, my daughter would be devastated. I still saw her, but I thought she was better off with my mum. I told her about the HIV when she was 13. She worries if I get ill but she's accepted it now."

Diane has also learned to come to terms with her illness. The HIV makes her tired, too tired to work, but she is determined to lead as normal a life as possible. Now 42, she lives in an upstairs flat on a warren-like housing estate in the west end of Newcastle. It's only 10am but she's already on her third cup of coffee - "I need it to help me wake up," she explains - and she lights cigarette after cigarette until the air is thick with smoke.

"The cancer will kill me before the HIV," she says, laughing. Having a sense of humour helps her get through but it hasn't always been that easy. After her diagnosis, she began to take drugs, mostly cannabis, although she admits dabbling with harder substances. She simply wanted to blot everything out. She still smokes cannabis which, she says, helps her relax.

"I do have bad days like when I go to someone's funeral or when I have my blood taken. They put a yellow sticker on it saying bio hazard. It's like you're a walking bag of virus," she says. It's the only time she allows any bitterness to creep into her voice.

But Diane is relatively lucky. When she was diagnosed, she was convinced she would die within months, but that was 11 years ago and although she goes for a check-up every three months, she still doesn't need any medication.

"I'm what they call a slow progessor. It just depends what strain you get and how it affects your system. I had a friend who died recently but he had it for 17 years before he had to start taking medication."

Since being diagnosed, she has been a regular visitor to Body Positive, a drop-in centre and support service for people with HIV and AIDS, based in Newcastle. When she first joined, she was the only woman in a group of gay men, but that has changed and she's now helping to set up a women's group.

"There are new women coming in every day which just goes to show that it affects everyone. But even when it was just men, I knew they were all going through the same thing I was. That's very comforting and I don't know how I would have got through without it."

In September last year, she met Charles, a Ghanaian asylum seeker, at Body Positive. He had just been diagnosed with HIV and they are now engaged. Until then, she had found it very difficult to make relationships with men.

"I'm a very tactile person. I wanted a relationship but it's virtually impossible. When do you tell someone you're HIV? In the pub? Before you go to bed? Three months down the line?

"Personally, if I was okay and a guy told me he had HIV, I would run a mile. I know it sounds stupid coming from me but that's what I would do. I realised it would only work if I found someone else who was HIV and that's what I've found with Charles. He's been brilliant. He's totally changed my life around."

Diane is now excited about her future and is keen to point out that there is life after HIV. New drugs are extending life expectancy all the time but there still is no cure. She hopes people will learn from her experience and take responsibility for their own health.

"When you're young, you think you're invincible, that nothing can touch you but it can take six months to get infected - or just one night. I knew the risks, I should have used a condom, but when you are in a long-term relationship, you think everything is fine. I was with my boyfriend for two years but it obviously wasn't fine.

"There has to be more publicity. There used to be, when people first became aware of AIDS, but you never see anything now. If we keep on taking this head-in-the-sand approach, we are going to be in big trouble a few years down the line when all these people start getting ill."

* The names in this article have been changed.

* Body Positive can be contacted on 0191-232 2855.