Category: UN
HIV and Africans in the UK
posted: 11/05/2011
HIV & UK African Communities is a brand new guide to the key issues affecting black African communities in the UK. It contains personal stories and a directory of services as well as sections dealing with the key issues.
Produced by NAM it is available free online or as a book for just under £25.
It covers the key topics
- facts and figures about black Africans living in the UK
- about HIV among Africans here
- the needs of Africans living with HIV
- mental health
- faith
- stigma and discrimination
- telling others
- HIV prevention, testing, diagnosis and treatment
- women
- men
- men who have sex with men
- children and families
- young people
- carers
- older adults
- gender-based violence
- rights to healthcare
- immigration and asylum
- prosecutions.
HIV & UK African Communities: the key issues
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Last chance for Manchester Run places!
posted: 26/04/2011
George House Trust still has a few places left in Team GHT in this year’s Great Manchester Run.
We have a great support package available, including a free GHT running vest, after run massage and a post run party at Taurus.
Please email: laura@ght.org.uk as soon as possible if you would like to snap up one of our final places.
Places cost £36 (this is the registration charge from Bupa). If you would like to purchase one of our places, but don’t want to fundraise for us this year, please also get in touch.
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Gay Businesses - HIV Prevention
posted: 18/04/2011
Gay venues and businesses, like saunas, clubs, bars, profile and other gay websites, travel agencies and hotels, can either help reduce, or may increase the numbers of HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STI) among gay, bi and other men who have sex with men (MSM).
There’s a new guide which sets out for businesses standards that will help not hinder HIV prevention called Everywhere. It comes from the University of Brighton.
Persuading gay businesses to help reduce the numbers of HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STI) needs more than persuasion skills, it needs HIV prevention organisations to have ways of selling the advantages of HIV and STI prevention to these businesses.
Sex sells, so how can HIV prevention help these businesses sell themselves? The answers and training for HIV prevention organisations are provided in a training manual to go with the prevention standards manual for gay businesses.
One part of the training manual is called ‘Incentives for MSM business to be socially responsible’ and another is about working with hostile businesses. The training manual for helping HIV prevention organisations work with gay serving businesses to reduce HIV and other STI transmissions, is the Training Workbook on Social Mediation with Gay and MSM Businesses regarding HIV/STI prevention.
Both the standards for businesses and the the training manual are the work of the Europe-wide Everywhere Consortium for HIV prevention and their website has sections for gay men’s HIV and sexual health organisations, for businesses serving gay and bi men, and for gay men a section of the website lists venues and businesses which meet these HIV and sexual health prevention standards. So far few businesses are listed as meeting these standards - in the UK there are some in London and Brighton; in France some in Paris, in Spain some in Madrid, for example.
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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
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Answers in Untested Mystery
posted: 12/04/2011
HIV experts in England are puzzled why some people using STI clinics refuse HIV tests. We know for sure that some of those refusing HIV tests do have HIV (from using blood from samples given for syphilis tests and after the syphilis test is done and the blood sample is made completely anonymous, it can be tested for HIV).
The 2009 results from doing this show that 2.4% of gay and bisexual men and 0.25% of heterosexuals tested for syphilis came to the sexual health clinic with undiagnosed HIV.
But only 63% of these people agreed to a HIV test at the STI clinic - much lower than the average rate of HIV testing for people using STI clinics.
Why are so many people who have ‘undiagnosed’ HIV, refusing HIV tests?
One quarter must already know they have HIV - they are taking HIV treatment !
Some useful answers to the testing mystery have now emerged. Now we know that around a quarter of people with ‘undiagnosed’ must know they have HIV, because blood tests prove they are taking HIV treatment. These and other results, given at the British HIV Association conference in Bournemouth last week, are the first clear evidence of some answers to the ‘undiagnosed’ mystery.
Slightly more heterosexual women and men (32% for both men and women) than gay men (24%) are using a different clinic for STI checks than for their HIV treatment. Experts thought gay men with HIV were more likely to go elsewhere for HIV checks than heterosexuals. Experts don’t always guess right. Some people with HIV have told community organisations and patient advocates that one reason they go elsewhere for testing is to avoid unwanted, intrusive or judgemental discussion of their sexual behaviour by their own HIV clinic.
The results means
- 9 in 100 of the gay and bisexual men who said yes to a syphilis test but no to a HIV test have HIV. At least 2 of those 9 are on treatment but didn’t tell the STI clinic they have HIV
- 8 in 1000 of the heterosexual women and men similarly are HIV positive. At least 2 of those 8 are on treatment but did not tell the STI clinic they have HIV.
These findings will make little difference to national estimates of how much undiagnosed HIV there is in the country.
Why do gay men who don’t yet know they have HIV refuse HIV tests?
Another small study given to last weeks conference looked at why some gay men refuse HIV tests. Researchers gave an anonymous questionnaire to 19 men who didn’t want to be tested, even though they had had anal sex without condoms and have, either never been tested, or had taken anal sex risks since their last HIV test.
The men could tick more than one reason.
15 of the 19 men said they believed they were at low risk of HIV infection [2 of the 19 men knew their partner has HIV]
- 14 said they were emotionally unprepared for a positive result
- 4 said they don’t like giving a blood [but nonetheless gave this to have the syphilis test]
- 4 also mentioned prosecutions for HIV transmission
- 4 said they were planning to test 'next month'
- 3 mentioned worries about the confidentiality of the HIV test result.
Testing Advantages well known
Most of the men know the advantages of HIV testing
- 16 said testing could give peace of mind
- 16 said testing allows treatment to start at the best time.
Testing worries rule
But all the gay men listed the disadvantages to them of HIV testing.
- 17 said testing was stressful
- 8 were worried about having to tell a boyfriend if they were positive
- 7 were concerned about the insurance and mortgage implications.
Unready for positive result, testing stress, in denial about risks
So most of these gay men didn’t feel emotionally ready to deal with a positive result, and find HIV testing stressful.
- Most thought their HIV risk was low, despite having taken enough risks to have got HIV and needing to visit an STI clinic.
The study authors suggest investigating ways of overcoming gay men’s resistance to testing at STI clinics.
Source
Reference – the free conference abstracts - read O13 & P152
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