Drums of war or peace? Foreign Secretary Jack Straw pictured (left) with Roger Saul, the owner of posh fashion outlet Mulberry, at a star-studded reception last month at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to raise money for health education programmes in Africa. The event, organised to promote the Mulberry Bottletop campaign and Student Partnerships Worldwide (SPW), attracted a host of celebrities and raised over £60,000. Jack Straw said his daughter, Charlotte, had spent six months with SPW in rural Uganda as a volunteer HIV health educator on her gap year. He was very proud to be associated with the two charities, he said. For details, visit www.mulberry.com and www.spw.org

Courtesy: SPW

Helping asylum seekers to get treatments

A large number of asylum seekers coming to Britain are falling through the net and are not getting anti-HIV treatments, Lisa Power of the Terrence Higgins Trust (THT) told the autumn British HIV Association (BHIVA) conference.
Refugees fleeing from persecution, and other asylum seekers living in the UK for more than 12 months, are entitled to full NHS access. But many recent asylum seekers with HIV are being denied antiretroviral drugs for themselves or even milk vouchers for their babies.
Lisa Power said there were cases where asylum seekers had been denied HIV drugs and had to change their health authority area to get treatments.
“The 12 month rule is stupid,” she said. “We need sensible and rational exceptions to this

restriction.”
THT is campaigning with BHIVA to allow doctors to treat HIV-diagnosed asylum seekers