[audio:https://www.savinglivesuk.com/public/audio/Katie’s Story.mp3|titles=Katie on BBC Radio WM] Listen to Katie speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, on World AIDS Day 2012

Katie is Convent-educated and a practising Roman Catholic – she never considered herself at risk of HIV. When she first fell ill, she thought she had cancer, because she was losing so much weight. “I had my head in the sand, because I didn’t want to know the truth,” she says. “But I never thought of HIV.”

She has had only three sexual partners in her life, and because neither she nor her doctor thought to recommend an HIV test, she was diagnosed later than she might have been. At her worst, Katie couldn’t walk, she couldn’t talk, and couldn’t breathe properly. Finally, she was admitted to A&E with a type of pneumonia – and she was lucky to survive.