Over 300 delegates met last month for the fifth CHAPS conference. There was a real sense of foreboding about the future, reports Martin Flynn...
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Continued high rates of new HIV infections among gay men in Britain plus
worries about future funding dominated proceedings at the fifth national
Community HIV and Aids Prevention Strategy (CHAPS) conference.
Nearly 300 delegates gathering at the University of London for the
meeting, including health promotion workers, representatives of the
voluntary and statutory sectors, activists and local government workers
from around the country.
The nine CHAPS partners get £1.2 million a year from the Department
of Health to organise HIV prevention work for gay and bisexual men in
Britain. But government proposals to change HIV and Sexual Health funding
left many of those present concerned about the future of prevention work
and also for their own personal careers.
Neil Macdonald of the Public Health Laboratory Service, said that there
was no room for complacency because most of the new HIV
infections acquired in the UK were still among men who have sex with
men.
Even though the number of new HIV cases each year among heterosexuals
now
now outnumbers those among gay men, the majority of new heterosexual infections in Britain are acquired abroad, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa.
