The Hull Daily Mail has lost its High Court battle against an injunction preventing it from revealing details about an HIV health scare.

The paper had applied to vary the injunction protecting the identity of a health worker at the centre of the scare so that it could reveals details such as the area of the health service affected.

It also wanted to tell worried readers when patients had been put at risk and how the danger had occurred.

The paper stressed that it did not want to name the health worker.

But a judge at the High Court of Justice in London dismissed the paper’s application.

Judge Heather Hallett said it was “perfectly proper” for the Mail to have made the application as it was a classic case of public interest and a matter of public importance.

But she said the injunction should remain in force to protect the identity of the health worker and to ensure that, in similar cases, people would declare they had HIV.

She also ordered the Mail to pay the costs of the Medical Defence Union and the Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, which had both asked the court to reject the paper’s challenge.

Mail assistant editor Marc Astley said: “We lodged our application to vary the injunction because we felt this was very much in the public interest.

“Obviously we are disappointed with the result, but we won’t be taking the matter any further. We reluctantly accept the judge’s ruling.”

The Mail began its legal challenge after it was flooded with calls from worried patients in Hull and the East Riding who had received letters telling them that a health worker involved in their care was infected with the HIV virus.

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