Category: NHS
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Saving Lives Positive Ambassador Luke was recently diagnosed with HIV – and spoke this morning on Radio 5 Live with a man who was diagnosed in 1982 about the changing perceptions of HIV. Our Medical Director, Dr Steve Taylor, also appeared, discussing the latest HIV figures issued by Public Health England, next week’s National HIV Testing…
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Public Health England has today published its annual report into HIV in the UK. It is available in PDF format here. These figures cover 2013. We will be breaking down the results for you in the coming days and weeks, but the headline facts are fairly straightforward: HIV infections are continuing to rise, and increased…
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This post originally appeared on the Huffington Post. Written with Dan Hartland, Director of Operations at the Saving Lives Charity We launched the HIV awareness charity Saving Lives because we believed that stigma has a real and measurable impact on health. Prejudice impacts upon how people behave, how readily they visit their doctor about a…
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We have a very exciting campaign lined up for National HIV Testing Week – which this year also coincides with European HIV Testing Week. Awareness-raising will culminate, of course, on World AIDS Day, December 1st. This year, we’ve got another of our campaigns planned which really will get everyone involved: celebrities, positive ambassadors, members of…
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A very important, and in some quarters controversial, study has been published this week which presents evidence that pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is “highly protective” against HIV for gay men and men who have sex with men (MSM). In PrEP, antiretroviral drugs are given to HIV-negative people – for instance, partners of an HIV-positive person, or…
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[slideshow_deploy id=’3852′] HIV in the UK: 1 in 5 people infected don’t know they have it. Hepatitis B in the UK: 1 in 350 people are infected. Hepatitis C in the UK: Half of those infected don’t know they have it. That’s why we’re encouraging hospitals to test for these three viruses to everyone having…
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Over at GP Online, Dr Iain Reeves and Dr Richard Ma discuss the importance of HIV testing for black Africans: Undiagnosed HIV remains an important problem in the UK. Those who are unaware of their infection cannot access life-prolonging treatment and face a much greater risk of mortality and morbidity because of late diagnosis. In…
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This piece originally played at the Huffington Post … I am sitting in my front garden at 5am feeling slightly shell-shocked, wondering what has just happened – and wondering if I am still a doctor. What a strange opening to a blog. To put my dawn chorus into context, I thought it would be useful…
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Saving Lives has teamed up with Brook, Terrence Higgins Trust, and the Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust in a bid to provide sexual health services across Birmingham. The unique bid, which sees NHS doctors team up with charities to offer comprehensive sexual health provision to all of Birmingham and Solihull, has been made to…
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“Using smartphone apps to seek out partners for casual sex poses an increased risk of sexually transmitted infections, researchers warn.” Our Medical Director, Dr Steve Taylor, is quoted in this BBC piece about the dangers of so-called ‘sex apps’: “This is definitely something we are seeing in our sexual health and HIV clinics, both among…