Stephen Cummins

So close, So far...

 

It's not very often I agree with politicians. 

 

I work in admin in local government which I can officially confirm usually lurches uncontrollably between 'Yes Minister' and 'The Thick of It'.

 

But recently the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Nick Clegg, spoke at a function for the Terrence Higgins Trust about the fact that, according to some figures, there are around 22,000 people with HIV in the UK who do not know they have it.

 

This is an issue not just for those people whose health will inevitably suffer in the long term, but for those they have relationships with who are also at risk if the virus goes untreated.

 

The value of testing and diagnosis cannot be understated. Medications exist today which can drive a viral load down to an undetectable level enabling people to live long, healthy lives without passing the virus on.

 

If everyone who had the virus was diagnosed, put on medication and treated, in time HIV would be eradicated, because everyone who had it, with the appropriate treatments and a suppressed viral load, would not be passing it on like a grotesque baton to future generations of young people who must then face that diagnosis.

 

If the virus is not passed on and with the aid of appropriate treatments, when the carrier dies, the virus dies too, and just like that, within a generation or two, HIV could be made a thing of the past, like Smallpox, the dodo and leggings (Sorry, but it is my firmly held view they make even the best pair of legs look like a sack of hammers).

 

To borrow a political tag line from the 2010 election "We're all in this together" - no one can afford to be complacent about their sexual health and general sex education must improve. To my shame and ultimately, my cost, I knew very little of HIV before my diagnosis and if you speak to a student about the virus, it's treatment and it's spread it is easy to see that misconception and rumour still underpin it's public perception.

 

Schools and colleges are the right places to educate young people about these communicable illnesses before they start experimenting with their sexuality.

 

It provides the perfect environment in which gay and straight young people can be advised of the importance of taking care of their sexual health.

 

It's this point I'm keen to make; HIV does not discriminate. It does not care if your are gay, straight or somewhere between the two; of the 22,000 a significant number are straight men and straight women.

 

Too often it has been the case that HIV is described as a 'gay disease', something that is rife in the gay community.

 

This is no longer the case, HIV is now spreading among more and more heterosexual people, who are less likely to come into contact with the information about HIV that they need to know to stay safe.

 

That is why when Mr Clegg raised the hope for a cross party response to HIV, to make sure that diagnosis takes place early, I could be seen punching the air, but, as is so often the problem with politicians who make an excellent point, Mr Clegg then carried on talking.

 

My fear is that when the Deputy Prime Minister said that a "big underlying issue" is that there "are people who are leading lives where they are susceptible to having HIV", coupled with the fact that his talk was only largely reported in the gay press (thanks PinkNews) it will have the effect of once again making HIV a 'gay problem'.

 

So, to use another key phrase of the 2010 election; "I agree with Nick", but I think there's more work to do.