A way forward
To this day, HIV is still an incurable disease claiming millions of lives globally. Yet the question remains: is the UK’s government taking this disease seriously? Whilst campaigners are complaining that much advertisements tend to focus on raising awareness of Chlamydia and Gonorrhoea, HIV seems to be left out.
Experts in the field have agreed that the lack of education is one of the main keys hindering HIV prevention. Once again, as far as HIV issues are concerned, has the government come short of finance to make a difference?
Veronica Oakshott, the policy adviser of the All-Party Parliament Group (APPG) on AIDS, who is of the office of Labour MP David Borrow, said: “In terms of promoting legislation to make things better, we are very much on site with the government’s proposals to make sex and relationship education statutory in schools.
“We are feeding into the process to ensure that HIV is part of that educational curriculum, and we hope that this is going to have a good impact on levels of levels of stigma in the years to come as young people grow up full in the knowledge of how HIV is transmitted.”
Meanwhile, Silvia Petretti, who is a spokesperson at Positively Women (PW), an HIV organisation focussing on helping women affected by the disease in the UK, insisted that the way to prevent more HIV infections from happening was to encourage testing. “Expanding testing is crucial for better prevention and treatment of HIV. PW supports better sexual and relationship education in schools as well as better general information campaigns for the general population.
“People should be supported to take HIV testing and understanding the benefits of testing. If you know early that you are HIV positive, the medications work better and HIV will not affect your health dramatically. HIV medications nowadays work really well,” she said.