New Queen crowned by the Regal Court of the Knights of SohoTop cabaret artiste Pam Ann (pictured middle row) was crowned as the new queen of the Regal Court of the Knights of Soho last month at a star-studded ceremony at Comptons of Soho followed by a show at the famous Two Brewers in glamorous Clapham. The Regal Court act as community fundraisers for the UKC (publishers of Positive Nation magazine). Pictured alongside diva ‘Queen P.A. I’ is the Court’s new Prince Consort Jason, aka Jason Dickie (pictured far right) - landlord of the inimitably salubrious south London gay institution the Royal Vauxhall Tavern. |
The Terrence Higgins Trust has launched a new hard-hitting campaign opposing compulsory HIV testing for asylum seekers.
Martin Kirk, THT’s parliamentary and campaigns manager, hit out at recent media reports that asylum seekers are a risk to public health and a burden on the NHS.
“There is no evidence that compulsory HIV tests would benefit public health at all,” Kirk said, “and they would also breach the 1951 Convention of the status of refugees of which the UK is a signatory.”
Meanwhile, latest figures from the Health Protection Agency (HPA) reveal that new cases of HIV among heterosexuals in Britain are now, for the first time, more than double the new cases among homosexuals.
The number of heterosexuals diagnosed with the virus has risen by nearly 50 per cent over the past year, while the number of new cases among homosexuals has risen by six per cent.
Over 20 per cent of HIV infections in Britain were probably acquired in Africa and as many as 90 per cent of these cases were transmitted heterosexually.
Meanwhile, home truths are revealed by a group of HIV positive African women living in London in a new report launched by THT.
The majority of the 62 women interviewed expressed fears of pregnancy, immigration status insecurities, disclosure worries, and concerns over their roles as mothers, above their physical concerns around HIV itself.
Practically all the women were diagnosed here rather than in their home country due to becoming pregnant or very sick.
Winnie Ssanyu-Sseruma, chair of the African HIV Policy Network, thanked the report’s co-ordinators at the launch for producing such a moving piece of work. Dr Jane Anderson from Bart’s Hospital and Professor Lesley Doyal from Bristol University collaborated with six London hospitals and Positively Women.
“The report doesn’t let us down,” Winnie said: “Real feelings and real anxieties are expressed.
“We must encourage our black communities to join in the response to the current viciousness in the media and the ‘health tourism’ controversy.”
Liz Kawonza, THT’s African services development manager, said that Africans with HIV in Britain need the support of other black people in this country to encourage more open discussion about the current asylum procedures.
For copies of the THT ‘My Heart is Loaded’ report, contact campaigns@tht.org.uk or phone 020 7816 8625. To register your concern about compulsory testing for asylum seekers, join THT’s ecampaign at: www.tht.org.uk and click on ‘Campaign with us’.
Widespread ignorance about sexually-transmitted infections is contributing to a growing sexual health crisis in this country, according to the Family Planning Association (FPA).
It called on the government to introduce a national screening programme for chlamydia, which is the most common STI in Britain. Rates of the disease rose by a staggering 139 per cent in Britain over the last seven years, reaching over 81,000 cases in 2002. The disease remains without symptoms for many, but can lead to infertility if it remains untreated.
But perhaps the most alarming finding in the FPA study is that over 60 per cent of 16 to 24-year-old women and men in Britain who are in a sexual relationship admit that they never, or only sometimes, used a condom in the last year.
FPA chief executive Anne Weyman said: “The screening programme has been delayed due to a lack of significant and sustained investment.”
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has backed the screening campaign.
“Patients require access to care at the earliest possible opportunity; yet the current system means they suffer delays in an overburdened service,” said the RCN’s Beverley Malone.
The lack of a strategic plan by the NHS to improve sexual health services was also under fire last month.
An analysis by charities found that only two in five health authorities made mention of sexual health in their plans for the future.
Paul Ward of the Terrence Higgins Trust said: “While we strongly support the need to help modernise the NHS, equally vital is the need to reduce health inequalities and that means investing properly in local sexual health services.”
The Terrence Higgins Trust ‘Living Well with HIV’ team is running a national media campaign this month aimed at dispelling the myth that depression is an inevitable part of life with HIV.
The campaign follows a study from one London HIV clinic which found that over 30 per cent of patients experience depression or depressive attacks at some point.
THT say that their campaign is not an attempt to ‘cheer up’ people with HIV, but instead attempts to focus people living with the virus on what they can do for themselves, starting with how they view their lives.
Whereas many people with HIV experience depression as a side effect of living with the disease, or as a consequence of certain antiretroviral treatments, the THT team says that making decisions for yourself and forming lasting relationships can have a beneficial effect.
The campaign highlights the difficulties people with depression have with adherence to anti-HIV medications, and says that how someone feels about themselves and their life with HIV is central to effective anti-HIV treatment.
The November edition of Positive Nation will carry a feature on mental health to launch our new ‘Agony Aunt and Uncle’ page.
Positive circus in Trafalgar SquareKen Livingstone, the Mayor of London, hosted the capital’s first disability arts festival in Trafalgar Square last month. Among acts on view to mark 2003 as European year of Disabled People was an aerial performance by HIV positive gymnast Jean-Marie Akkerman. Memorial for HIV haemophiliacs
A grove of 1,200 trees in Wiltshire has been set aside as a living memorial to celebrate the lives of people in Britain with haemophilia who became infected with HIV after receiving tainted blood products in the 1980s. A two-and-a-half-ton engraved boulder was hoisted into place last month to mark the completion of the project, funded by haemophiliac support charity the Birchgrove Group. Fewer than 400 of the haemophiliacs who were infected with HIV in Britain remain alive today. |
