Action on Teaching HIV in Schools

posted: 17/07/2009

Earlier this week we asked you to stand up for the rights of children and young people to effective HIV education in all schools. One further simple step we ask is for you to give the same message to the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority.

Last October the Government announced it would make sex and relationships education (SRE) a statutory part of the National Curriculum by 2011. It has not happened yet - there are two consultations about it. Churches and schools opposed to teaching all children about HIV, sexuality and relationships are actively campaigning against making HIV and SRE compulsory.

Unless there is a strong show of support for making SRE part of the curriculum, the Government may decide not to make this change, and young people will then continue to miss out on basic information about how to protect themselves from HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.
 

Tell the QCA we must have sex and relationships education in schools

As part of the review, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority is consulting with a short questionnaire on PSHE. Please complete the survey, support making sex and relationships education part of the National Curriculum. There are only 10 simple tick-box questions. The more responses the QCA receives in favour, the stronger the pressure to act.

You can download the survey (in Word) and then email it to the QCA
 

You could simply copy the tickbox answers given by THT. They are listed here. You can see all of THT's completed survey here. Section 1 is the most important bit, where you vote for SRE. (Section 2 asks questions about specific areas of the curriculum, which you can ignore if you wish).
 

Making PSHE a part of the National Curriculum will be essential to improving the UK's future sexual health, we have already come a long way in campaigning for this, we just need one final push to make it a reality.

Suggested answers to tickbox questions

QCA PSHE Reform Survey (Word)

HIV+ Working Surgeon

posted: 14/01/2009

An HIV-positive surgeon in Israel is being allowed to continue working. He or she is taking HIV treatment and has an undetectable viral load. The Israelis have effectively issued a statement, rather like the Swiss statement we have been reporting on over the last year. Both statements are about how effective HIV treatment can reduce infectivity to close to zero.

simple precautions are enough

The Israeli Ministry of Health has decided that the surgeon with HIV who is receiving antiretroviral treatment may return to carrying out invasive surgical procedures, providing that he or she maintains an undetectable viral load, follows infection control procedures and uses two layers of surgical gloves when operating. 
 

Time for UK HIV+ healthcare workers ban to be reviewed

Healthcare workers with HIV are routinely banned from surgical procedures of any kind, even very minor ones such as stitching wounds. This affects some doctors, midwives, some nurses, dentists, and some ambulance staff, among others. 
 

The Israeli decision is increasing the pressure on bodies regulating UK and other countries' healthcare employment to review their guidance on healthcare workers with HIV engaging in exposure-prone, invasive procedures.

In the United Kingdom, for example, the General Medical Council and the General Dental Council require that HIV-positive healthcare workers desist from carrying out exposure-prone procedures – anything that involves cutting, suturing, use of needles or delivery of babies using forceps or suction, and almost all dental work, – and all healthcare workers recruited to the National Health Service who will be carrying out these types of procedures are tested for HIV. Many healthcare workers have been forced to retire or change careers as a result of the guidance, including several in the NorthWest of England.
 

The Israeli statement is the first official acknowledgement that HIV treatment reduces the risk of bloodborne HIV transmission to such low levels that a doctor, dentist, nurse or midwife can continue working.
It could help reduce stigma for people with HIV, as long as media storms about fears of HIV transmission from healthcare workers can be avoided.
 

NAM's HIV Treatment Update in August/September took a detailed look at whether healthcare workers should be allowed to carry out surgical procedures.
 

HIV is present in potentially infectious quantities in blood, semen, vaginal fluids and breastmilk and, as a result, HIV can be passed on through injecting drug use, unprotected sex, and from a mother to her baby.
 

It’s not inevitable that a person exposed to HIV will become infected with the virus. One of the factors that affects this risk is the viral load of the person with HIV. HIV treatment lowers viral load both in blood and genital fluids.
There’s recently been a lot of debate about the infectiousness of people taking HIV treatment who have an undetectable viral load.
 

Swiss doctors kick-started the debate about a year ago. In a statement, they said that a person taking HIV treatment, who’d had an undetectable viral load for at least six months, who took all their medication and who didn’t have a sexually transmitted infection, was not infectious to their heterosexual partners.
 

The current consensus seems to be that HIV treatment, and all the Swiss conditions, reduces the risk of sexual transmission, but that a small risk may still be present.
 

Full report in the USA's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report
Some further details are in the aidsmap report
Source