“I FEEL like I've been given this for a reason and I have to talk about it now.

“Of course I knew of the dangers, but he was a married man, who was heterosexual before. I never thought I would catch HIV from him.”

Marc Rushton has been living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus for 15 months. And now he wants to tell his story to mark World AIDS Day today.

The 41-year-old, from Accrington, became infected with the disease last August through unprotected gay sex.

However, as a gay man Marc was in the minority last year. Some 70 per cent of the 34 new cases of HIV and AIDS reported in 2008 across East Lancashire involved heterosexual people.

There are now 191 people in the region known to carry either HIV or AIDS.

But there are potentially many more who are yet to be diagnosed, which increases the chances of their condition developing into the more serious Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

Marc said: “HIV is massively on the increase in East Lancashire. And it's not just gay people, it's not just drug users, it's heterosexual people.

“We need to fight the stigma of HIV, but I think half of the stigma around HIV is attached to a lack of understanding.

“One of my friends said to me on Friday, 'women can't get HIV can they?' and it makes you think how little some people know.

“If you don't catch it early enough and if you don't get medicine then it's more likely to become full-blown AIDS.”

Businessman Marc described how he found out he may be infected.

He said: “I had been having an affair with a married man for a number of years.

“He rang me up and told me on the phone that he had been diagnosed HIV positive.

“I went to my doctor's the next day. When he got the result of the blood test he just told me it had come back ‘not negative’ and that was it. There was no counselling or any help.

“I was devastated. After that I suffered from depression for months.”

Marc now attends Royal Blackburn Hospital every week because he has problems with his blood clotting.

HIV weakens the immune system. Marc said: “It's much more than just a physical illness. How do you come to terms with it and how do you talk to your friends about it?

“It's affected every aspect of my life. When I'm down with depression it can take me two hours to get up in the morning.

“I'm now unfit for work. It's soul destroying.

“I've not had a relationship since last August because I don't feel I can have any contact with anyone. I fear rejection.”

Marc said the community had been ‘really supportive’, even holding an AIDS awareness event at the Swan pub.

But he said his ‘saviour’ was Lancashire HIV support group Thrivine, which he joined in February. It has more than 40 members and meets once a month.

The group is helped by Chi Ko, a HIV community specialist for NHS Blackburn with Darwen, and offers free one-to-one support, information and advice, a buddy system, access to counselling, medical help and HIV testing.

To contact Thrivine, based at Eanam Wharf, Blackburn, call 01254 56557.