Hardest Hit March - Wednesday

posted: 09/05/2011

1 in 6 people living with HIV have lived in severe poverty in the past three years. On Wednesday 11th May there is a national march in London and mass lobby of MPs at the House of Commons to protest against the government's planned cuts and changes to benefits.

The cuts and benefit changes will make matters worse for the many people living with HIV who rely on Disability Living Allowance, Incapacity Benefit and Employment Support Allowance.
 

National march and lobby of MPs

People from across the country are coming together on May 11th in London to protest against these cuts and changes and to the cuts to local services which provide key services for people living with disabilities including HIV.
 

People with HIV will be joining the march and lobbying of MPs and if you'd like to be part of this and walk alongside the THT and NAT and other banners, you can find out where and when to meet up by contacting Guy Slade at THT (020 7812 1631). Also register and find out more details on the Hardest Hit website.

Once you've registered, you can email your MP to ask to meet with them as part of the lobby at the House of Commons after the march.

If you arrange a meeting, tell THT, who can advise on what you could say to your MP and ask for.
 

Last Chance to Join Gay Panel

posted: 10/02/2011

Gay and Bi men have a last chance (until midday on Friday 11 February) to join a national panel of over 3000 men to  help steer the future of HIV prevention and better sexual health services in England for gay and bi men.
 

This Sigma Panel is community-based research with gay and bi men. There’s a survey to do when you sign up, then (if you join in the rest of the research), short surveys every month, for a year. Your answers stay anonymous.
 

The research asks about relationships, sex life, risks and precautions, and use of health services.

They are keen to find out what influences the choices men make during sex.

Each month you’ll find out what men said in previous months' surveys.

They’ll ask you if you have any questions for the other gay and bi men on the panel to answer.
 

Sigma Research has been carrying out community-based HIV research for over 20 years, including men and women living with HIV who use George House Trust services.
 

Want to take part?
If you would like to be involved improving the health of gay and bisexual men by taking part in this research or to get more information please visit the sigmapanel before midday, Friday 11 February.

Ideas Meeting to End Harassment

posted: 13/12/2010

What should the council, NHS and other public bodies be doing to stop HIV abuse and harassment? People with HIV, their partners and friends can put forward ideas and have a say at a meeting in Manchester in late January. 

The Equalities and Human Rights Commission are holding a meeting for the families, friends and survivors of disability-related harassment (including HIV abuse).

Legal duty to end harassment

Public bodies all have a legal duty to ‘eliminate’ disability-related harassment and its causes. HIV abuse, threats and violence are all examples of disability-related harassment.

Most public bodies are doing nothing effective to ‘eliminate’ HIV and other forms of disability harassment. Because of the stigma associated with HIV public bodies should be prioritising the ending of HIV stigma and its causes.

What should public bodies be doing?
There is almost no limit to the creative (and cheap) ways public bodies could promote better public attitudes to people with HIV.

• The Local Government Improvement and Development website has top tips and case studies on improving ‘ community cohesion’
• The Institute for Community Cohesion also has resources, toolkits and case studies  

Ask to take part 

If you have been directly affected by disability-related harassment for example because of HIV, or someone you know has, and you would like to attend the meeting, please tell them as soon as possible. They will then invite you and send you the details of the meeting. There are only a limited number of seats so please book early. Email or telephone the Equality and Human Rights Commission: 0161 829 8174

This Manchester meeting will begin on Monday 24 January at 1pm and end by 5pm.
 

Please note this meeting is only for people who have experience of disability-related harassment.

Campaigning actions

During 2010 George House Trust has been encouraging people with HIV and HIV organisations to take part in this Disability Harassment Inquiry.

The commission has powers to order public bodies to take action and expects to publish its report and recommendations in the first part of 2011.

Find out more about the commission’s Inquiry into disability related harassment

Pope - Use Condoms with HIV

posted: 24/11/2010

The Vatican is now saying Catholics with HIV should use condoms. Trying to end the confusion at the weekend over words in a book of interviews with the pope, his spokesman made clear that using condoms is acceptable, a ‘lesser evil,’ where there was risk of HIV transmission.
 

Across Africa and the world, reaction to the statement showed the division of opinion within the Catholic church. Church conservative hardliners now have a doctrinal dilemma – do they push the pope’s anti-condoms opinions of last year, or what he says now?
 

African Hardliner: no condoms
Matthew Ndagosa, archbishop for the Kaduna diocese in Nigeria, with its huge numbers of Catholics said: "Everybody is misinterpreting the Vatican. People have made up their own minds on this issue and are twisting the words to fit them. Holy father's message was clear – there is no change in policy. The church will continue to believe that the indiscriminate use of condoms encourages promiscuity and aggravates the situation."

African Archbishop: condoms ‘good for prevention’
But Boniface Lele, archbishop for the diocese of Mombasa in Kenya, where 30% of the population is Catholic, said he was pleased: He has been advocating change in church policy on condoms, to the displeasure of the Vatican. "In my diocese, I tell couples that if one or both or them are sick, they should use condoms. For prevention it is good thing."
Gabriel Dolan, an Irish priest who works among the poor in Mombasa, described the church's historic stance on condom use as "an injustice to those in danger" in countries which have a serious AIDS problem. "This news is a relief," he said. "I think it's just the beginning. Once you make a small concession like this it's like taking a brick out of the Berlin Wall."
 

Translation confusion
According to the German original and the English translation of the book, ‘Light of the World’ by journalist Peter Seewald, the pope said the use of a condom by an HIV-positive male prostitute could be a good thing, because it shows responsibility. But some people saw the Italian translation of the pope’s words and read this to mean a female prostitute. Italian nouns have a gender, like French nouns, and the word ‘prostituta’ is a feminine noun, and it is used for both male and female sex workers.
 

Popes comes condom clean
But at a press conference in the Vatican to mark the launch of the book, his spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, explained that he had asked the pope on Sunday.
"I personally asked the pope if there was a serious, important problem in the choice of the masculine over the feminine," Lombardi said. "He told me 'no'." Lombardi said the key point was: "It's the first step of taking responsibility, of taking into consideration the risk of the life of another with whom you have a relationship … This is if you're a woman, a man, or a transsexual."
 

As several experts have noted, the book cannot alter doctrine. But Lombardi's comments show that the pope approves of condom use as a lesser evil where there was a risk of HIV transmission.

‘Evil’ condoms
The Catholic ban on the use of condoms, or any thing else for contraception remains. One of the pope's most senior officials, Cardinal Rino Fisichella, told the press conference condoms were "intrinsically an evil".
 

Pope’s words
In Seewald's book, the pope repeats his view that condoms are "not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection". But, asked whether his church is opposed in principle to their use, he gives a reply that falls well short of a straight answer.
"It of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality."
 

Church in confusion
The shift has caught out some of his most senior officials. Asked by the website of the US-based ‘National Catholic Register’ if the pope's statement indicated that in some cases condoms were permissible, Cardinal Raymond Burke replied flatly: "No, it's not."
In the UK, Elena Curti, deputy editor of the Catholic weekly, The Tablet, welcomed the shift, saying: "[The pope] has let the genie out of the bottle. Once you do that it's very difficult to put it back in. In allowing this chink of light in – despite the careful language he uses – it does open up the debate."
 

HIV charities welcome conversion
HIV charity Terrence Higgins Trust expressed delight at the pope’s change of view. "It does represent a huge shift in terms of what the Vatican said before," said the trust's communications director, Genevieve Edwards. "His comments are sufficiently broad to allow people to interpret them as they feel they need to."
 

Anti-abortion denial
But John Smeaton, a Catholic and director of the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child, denied that there had been any policy change. "Pope Benedict, like other Catholics, is bound by the magisterium of the church which he proclaims in Caritas in veritate," he wrote on his blog. "He's not likely to promote a change to that teaching in an interview with a journalist a year later – and he doesn't do so."
 

The popular Catholic blogger, Father Tim Finigan, acknowledged that there had been a shift, but warned: "I must offer a reaction of my own to the holy father's comments on AIDS and condoms. It would be along the lines of Sergeant Wilson in Dad's Army: 'Do you think that's wise, sir?' We know that the widespread distribution of condoms to tackle the problem of HIV/AIDS has not worked in practice." [This is plainly wrong – the scientific evidence is very strong that the widespread use of condoms is the most effective way to prevent HIV].
 

adapted from Source

Reduce Numbers Undiagnosed

posted: 15/11/2010

The number of people in England and Wales who do not know they have HIV stayed the same between 2001 and 2008, despite more people being diagnosed with HIV. 

Many of the people with HIV in the UK do not know this yet and undiagnosed people are much more likely to pass on HIV than people who are tested, advised about safer sex and treated.

To prevent onward HIV transmission we need to minimise the number of people with HIV who are undiagnosed and for how long people are undiagnosed.
 

A new study by the Medical Research Council, published in AIDS, estimates the total number of HIV positive people living in England and Wales aged 15-44, both diagnosed and undiagnosed, has increased from 32,400 in 2001 to 54,500 in 2008. Much of this rise is because more people are taking HIV tests.
 

Rise in diagnosed
The proportion of HIV infections diagnosed rose from 58 per cent in 2001 to 71 per cent in 2008, but the estimated number of people with HIV who have not been diagnosed has not fallen, because HIV infections are continuing to happen. Dr Anne Presanis, the leading researcher at the MRC Biostatistics Unit in Cambridge says:
"HIV remains an important public health problem. As long as a large number of people continue to be unaware of their condition, the infection will continue to pass from person to person. These findings highlight the need for continued public health policies aimed at both reducing further HIV transmission and encouraging individuals to get tested and access the help and services they need."
 

Study co-author Professor Noel Gill, head of the Health Protection Agency's HIV & STI department, said:
"The findings of this paper reveal the need to focus efforts on reducing transmission of HIV if we are to bring the overall number of cases down. Early diagnosis of HIV infection will give individuals access to treatment, improve their survival and reduce the risk of transmission to partners. The HPA recommends that people at higher risk of HIV, such as men who have sex with men, should test at least annually for HIV and that everyone should use a condom with all new or casual sexual partners - it is the surest way to ensure you do not become infected with a serious sexually transmitted infection such as HIV."
 

How they did it: triangulating data
The researchers estimated trends in diagnosed and undiagnosed HIV prevalence by putting together different sets of data. They used data on exposure group sizes from behavioural surveys and the population census; on prevalence of total and undiagnosed infection and proportions of infections diagnosed from unlinked anonymous sero-prevalence surveys and community surveys; and on the total number diagnosed from an annual survey of individuals with diagnosed HIV infection. They put these different data together, using a form of statistical "triangulation" of the available data, known as Bayesian multi-parameter evidence synthesis.
 

Source Medical Research Council