The Eddystone Trust will be carrying our a host of regional activities this month culminating on 1 July, which is Hepatitis C Awareness Day. For further details, visit: www.eddystone.org.uk Meanwhile, for details of the National Hepatitis C Resource Centre, based in the Mainliners office in south London, telephone 020 7735 7705 or visit: www.hep-ccentre.com
The Terrence Higgins Trust is asking Positive Nation readers to lobby their MPs in an effort to improve local HIV services around the country. Already 130 letters have been sent to MPs demanding action. To get involved, visit the THT website at www.tht.org.uk and click on the 'Campaign with us' section.
Latest web server statistics for Positive Nation over the last year show that the average requests for pages per day now exceeds 1,200. The fact that we are serving up at least 37 pages per hour at 4am shows the extent of our international website readership. One remarkable fact to come out of the study is that the biggest non western web readership of PN online worldwide is from Saudi Arabia, with over 10,000 page requests over a twelve-month period.
The recent big increases in cases of drug-resistant gonorrhoea in Britain are being fuelled in part by people having unsafe sex on holiday, health experts say. The proportion of strains of the disease resistant to first line antibiotics rose from three per cent in 2001 to almost 10 per cent last year.
A Wrexham hospital is seeing record increases in young men seeking testing for HIV and other sexually-transmitted infections. Maelor Hospital says that the number of patients seeking HIV tests has increased by 70 per cent in the last two years and it is also treating 300 new patients with chlamydia each year.
A gay former mayor has been found dead in the Trent and Mersey canal, days after he took a drugs overdose. An inquest heard that 54-year-old retired schoolteacher Jim Hopping, a former Conservative mayor of Lichfield, called an ambulance after taking an overdose of sleeping tablets. Psychiatrist Dr Detrai Mitre, said: "He said he wished to die because he was worried about a positive HIV test result." The coroner recorded an open verdict.
The National Aids Trust launched a campaign last month, to coincide with Men's Health Week, urging men to think below the belt. Derek Bodell, NAT's chief executive, said: "The UK is experiencing rapidly rising levels of STIs, including HIV, and it is essential that men take precautions and seek medical advice. It's important to think below the belt as well as above it."
The Charity Commission has paid tribute to the country's one million charity trustees during last month's National Volunteers Week. "Good trustees are the cornerstone of a healthy charity at both a community and national level," said Tony Pino: "They have an important legal responsibility but the role also brings great personal rewards."
There were over 95,000 reported incidents of violence against NHS staff last year, a National Audit Office survey has found, but many other cases go unreported. The figures represent a 13 per cent increase from the previous year, which itself was a record. But the Audit Office estimates that the true figures may be as much as 40 per cent higher. The Department of Health has launched a campaign in doctors' surgeries and hospitals to persuade the general public to be more considerate of NHS staff and said that all people who carry out any violence will be prosecuted.
