Compiled
and edited
by Martin Flynn
Manchester remembers Aids
page 1 of 6
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of issue 83
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Hundreds of people packed Manchester's Sackville Park
at Lesbian and Gay Mardi Gras on 25 August for a moving HIV candlelight
vigil. Volunteers from local charities the George House Trust (GHT), the
Lesbian and Gay Foundation, and Body Positive NorthWest collected money
around the city centre and Gay Village venues, and 'Operation Fundraiser'
is set to raise over £60,000, organisers say. On the Mardi Gras
parade, GHT volunteers campaigned with the slogan: 'HIV is part of Manchester
and part of Mardi Gras'.
Earlier in August, Central Manchester was also the
setting for the first 'Disability Rights Day'. It was organised by the Disability Rights Commission, which is backing a Single Equality Act outlawing discrimination on the grounds of age, disability, race, religion, sex and sexuality. For details, visit: www.drc-gb.org.uk
'One in 50' gay men catch HIV per year
Latest research from the Public Health Laboratory Service
(PHLS) has found that as many as one in 50 gay men attending GUM clinics
in England and Wales will have become HIV-infected last year. It has also
found that out of gay men attending GUM clinics who turn up at clinics
with both an STI and HIV, only a minority already knew they were HIV positive.
The Annual PHLS conference at Warwick University in September heard that
a study of gay men at clinics between 1995 and 2000 found an HIV incidence
rate of two per cent per annum.
"This worrying finding confirms that 20 years into the epidemic,
transmission of the incurable but
preventable infection is continuing at a steady rate in gay men," said the PHLS's Dr John Parry.
