Comforted Creatures Video

posted: 14/04/2011

We produced this animation (with apologies to Ardman Animation’s Creature Comforts) as a serious but amusing presentation on some of our work, for the Elton John AIDS Foundation. You can view it on the new videos page of the HIV magazine Baseline.

We interviewed people with HIV who have benefited from our positive prevention work and residential weekends, funded by the Elton John AIDS Foundation.
 

Excellent Presentation

After presenting all our Positive Prevention work which they have funded, to the Foundation's panel, they told us:

"George House Trust were the first to present and I have to say set a standard that was not replicated. If there was ever a lesson on how to do an interesting presentation, that was it.

Lynda and Colin spoke with passion about the work, the achievements so far and the publication of initial outcomes (they had the BHIVA/NHIVNA poster displayed).

An individual talked very openly and honestly about how he had benefited from the programme and to top it all we were treated to an animated film with people’s real experiences of the support and help they had received.

A perfect presentation with something for everyone - excellent!"

CHAPS impressed

We also showed this at the recent CHAPS conference held in Manchester for organisations and people involved in HIV prevention work with men who have sex with men. Robbie Currie, a leading NHS HIV prevention commissioner in London was very impressed, asking number of questions and commenting how useful a resource it was, and his interested in having something similar.  

View Comforted Creatures here http://www.baseline-hiv.co.uk/latest-videos

Treating to Prevent HIV

posted: 03/03/2011

Could people who do not have HIV use HIV treatment drugs (PrEP) to stop themselves from getting HIV? The detailed results just out for gay and bi men are better than the early findings. This means PrEP could be approved for use in the USA by the end of the 2011.

Last year, the first results from a study of gay and bisexual men appeared. Taking PrEP cuts gay and bi men’s risk of getting HIV. But there were worries because many of the men did not take all the tablets. Some men got HIV.

HIV infection
Much better updated results were announced at the CROI conference in Boston, USA, that has just ended.

In the different places where the trial took place, including South Africa, the taking of PrEP (HIV drugs to prevent HIV infection) varied a lot.

Gay and bi men in the two USA cities (Boston and San Francisco) of the international iPrEx study of tenofovir/FTC (Truvada) had near-perfect HIV-prevention drug taking, compared with 50% tablet taking at the other sites.
 

And the men taking the greatest sexual risks for HIV, by having unprotected receptive anal sex, were taking the prevention treatment better than men taking less HIV risks – which is good to know.
 

USA approval within a year?
Lead investigator Bob Grant announced that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had agreed that the trial results were good enough for the FDA to consider allowing the use of Truvada to prevent HIV. PrEP, as a result, might be approved in the USA by the end of this year.
 

First USA Guidelines for gay men published

Interim Guidance: Pre-exposure Prophylaxis for the Prevention of HIV Infection in Men Who Have Sex with Men from USA Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

2500 men and the results

There were almost 2500 men in this trial and 130 of them got HIV by the end. Like most drug trials men were randomly split into two groups and told they would either get Truvada, or a dummy pill, but no-one would know who was taking what, until the end. The men were therefore warned they should still use condoms, because half were using the dummy pill.
 

48 of the men who got HIV took the Truvada and 82 of the men who were taking the dummy pills, a HIV infection rate of 2.6% a year. Another 10 other men have HIV, but they already had the symptoms of HIV infection when they joined the study.
 

This means that the final ‘how well does it work’ rate in the ‘modified intent to treat’ analysis, (this leaves out the 10 men who started the study with HIV, and ignores things like different rates of tablet-taking and the men’s level of sexual risk-taking), was 42%.
 

PrEP worked better when men were over 25 (56%), among men who took more than 9 out of 10 of the tablets (68%), and among the men who were circumcised (76%).
 

Would PrEP be cost effective? 

Other new studies have now looked at the value for money of treating people to prevent HIV in South Africa. The answer is mixed. 

It is usually cheaper to treat the person with HIV than treating one or more HIV negative people with PrEP. Treating the person with HIV should reduce their viral load so it becomes undetectable and their chance of passing on HIV then becomes very small. In mixed status couples, that may be enough protection for many. But PrEP would help protect negative partners who have unsafe sex outside the main relationship and who don't use condoms.  

Source and more details

Positive Teens to Adults

posted: 17/02/2011

Imagine being in your late teens living with HIV, having to swop the comfort and friendliness of the children’s HIV clinic for the strange unknown world of adult HIV services.
 

It’s tough enough being a teenager growing into adulthood, but with a stigmatised lifetime condition like HIV there are often extra challenges.

Older teenagers with HIV are learning to be pioneers and deserve our respect for that.

Health workers helping teenagers

Health professionals talk about helping teenagers with HIV make the change from teenager to adult and growing older with HIV in the 200th issue of HIVTreatment Update.

Teens talking life with HIV

Two young people making these changes talk about their lives. JD Bailey (20, female) talks about growing up with HIV, and Max, (19, male) talks about telling others about HIV.

YouTube - Criminalise Hate not HIV

posted: 03/12/2010

Criminalise HATE not HIV is a new vid on YouTube, from the people at the UK HIV Stigma Index.

This film was shot by an incredible bunch of creative people including many from the UK HIV Stigma Index and something magical happened. We hope you enjoy it.
It has already had over 3000 hits.

Please share the vid
The Criminalise Hate not HIV video is part of the work by people involved with the UK HIV Stigma Index over the last 18 months. Please help promote this by putting it on your own facebook page, tweeting the link, emailing it to friends, or putting it on your website. All you have to do is visit the YouTube video and then click the Share button below the video and this lets you to add it to facebook, Twitter or send emails.

Working on next video – Verdict on a Virus
They are already working on a a short documentary 'Verdict on a Virus', to highlight the prosecution of people with HIV - editing this next video is already underway and it will be out soon.
 

UK HIV Stigma Index

Comforted Creatures with HIV

posted: 04/11/2010

We produced this animation (with apologies to Ardman Animation’s Creature Comforts) as a serious but amusing presentation on some of our work, for the Elton John AIDS Foundation.

We interviewed people with HIV who have benefited from our positive prevention work and residential weekends, funded by the Elton John AIDS Foundation.
 

Excellent Presentation

After presenting all our work to the Foundation's panel, they told us:

George House Trust were the first to present and I have to say set a standard that was not replicated. If there was ever a lesson on how to do an interesting presentation, that was it.

Lynda and Colin spoke with passion about the work, the achievements so far and the publication of initial outcomes (they had the BHIVA/NHIVNA poster displayed).

An individual talked very openly and honestly about how he had benefited from the programme and to top it all we were treated to an animated film with people’s real experiences of the support and help they had received.

A perfect presentation with something for everyone - excellent! 

Watch and listen at George House Trust on Facebook