The CARA Trust celebrated 15 years as a charity with a service in Westminster Abbey at the end of July. CARA, the Gaelic word for Friend, is a multi-denominational partnership giving pastoral care and support to people living with HIV and Aids. It now provides 12,000 hours of service to 350 people every year. It also educates various faith groups in providing care to those affected by the virus and has regular gatherings in London providing peer support. For details of CARA, telephone 020 7792 8299.
Women and HIV and Aids will be the UNAIDS theme for next year culminating in the International Aids Conference in Bangkok in July 2004. Meanwhile the campaign for 2003 continues with its focus on stigma and discrimination. For details, visit the National Aids Trust website at www.nat.org.uk or the UN site at www.unaids.org
Advice services on HIV and Aids are failing to get their point across to ethnic minorities in Brighton and Hove, according to a new report. The report claims that health organisations in the region have failed to realise that the kind of people who now use the service is changing. Author Ogo Chime told the BBC: “The problem is they are just not used to these people. They should start to look at services that will target their needs specifically.” Brighton’s black community has doubled in the last ten years and 160 people from minority groups sought HIV treatment in the area last year.
Health Scotland says that thousands of Scots who jet off abroad for summer holidays have unsafe sex and return home with sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Last year 250 Scots were diagnosed with HIV, the highest number since 1987. “The risk of any infection from unprotected sexual intercourse is very high when you’re on holiday,” Dr Jamie Inglis said.
The Tyddyn Bach Trust held an all-day rock concert at Bangor University in August to raise funds to secure the future for the unique Aids hospice. The centre, in North Wales, is one of only three in the UK providing respite care for people living with the virus and urgently needs to raise £125,000 by next year to buy the building that has been its home for five years before the lease runs out. It has been unsuccessful in its bids from the public sector despite receiving the Queen’s Jubilee Award for excellent services last month.
To support Tyddyn Bach, telephone 01492 623322 or visit: www.tyddynbachtrust.org.uk
In a written parliamentary question to the Secretary of State for Health in July, Andrew Turner MP asked what the cost had been to the NHS of treating HIV and Aids in the last five years.
Junior health minister Melanie Johnson MP responded that the figures were £199.7 million for 1997-98, £228.2 million for 1998-99, £228.2 million for 1999-2000, £184.3 million for 2000-2001 and £223.5 million for the year 2001 to 2002.
The House of Commons Public Accounts committee report has slated the former Medicines Control Agency for supplying poor quality information to the general public about medications and for an “unacceptable” and “lacklustre performance”. The Agency, which was taken over this spring by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, was criticised for “lack of dynamism” by the powerful parliamentary committee as well as for having a “non-existent” public profile. The report was critical of poor quality information on drug leaflets and labels and gives ammunition to the HIV sector which has led the way with clear information about Aids medications.
