Earlier this year, the Government announced a new goal to eliminate HIV in England by 2030. In order to achieve this ambitious goal, providers in the HIV and sexual health sector need to ensure services and interventions are reaching the key populations at risk of HIV. The trends in key populations have shifted since the beginning of the epidemic. This event seeks to determine what those trends are, and what the implications for service delivery may be.
An incredible 98% of respondents to our National HIV Testing Week (NHTW) 2018 sector evaluation survey agreed that the campaign is a valuable addition to their HIV prevention efforts. The same percentage also agreed they will support NHTW in 2019.
The It Starts With Me campaign (ISWM) provides targeted HIV health promotion to men who have sex with men (MSM) and black Africans (BA).
The primary objective is to increase the level of testing among MSM and BA, reduce the rates of late diagnoses and new HIV infections, promote HIV testing, and encourage the use of condoms.
Positive East launched ‘Mama Says’ in November 2018. The 90-second film clip, available in six languages, is an animated tool to encourage pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) uptake amongst communities at risk of HIV who may not be aware of HIV and PrEP. ‘Mama Says’ is specifically designed for African communities.
As the year draws to a close there is much to celebrate within the HIV sector. The UK’s achievement of reaching the UNAIDS 90-90-90 goals ahead of the 2020 target is something that we can all be proud of. We now know that in the UK:
As outlined in the latest Public Health England (PHE) ‘Progress towards ending the HIV epidemic in the UK: 2018 report’ [PDF], this success is down to the combination prevention approach which is now at the forefront of the sector’s efforts to eliminate new HIV transmissions.