Under the Equality Act 2010, HIV is recognised legally as a disability. Around the world, it continues to have a huge impact on the lives of millions. But are we at risk of being complacent in the UK, thinking that it is no longer a public health issue here?
Did you know that new HIV diagnoses in England are on the rise in recent years, after declining since the peak in 2005? There were 6,008 HIV diagnoses in 2023, an increase of 56% on 2019.
One contributing factor is that testing rates for HIV are falling, particularly among heterosexual people. But another factor is that we’re not teaching young people about HIV in schools as effectively as we did a decade or so ago.
According to a recent National AIDS Trust study, young people in England have less knowledge of HIV transmission than people aged over 35. acet UK has observed firsthand over the last 10 years that HIV awareness does appear to be falling amongst young people, and have noticed that schools aren’t asking us to deliver HIV lessons as often as they used to.
So, this National HIV Testing Week, we launched a new ‘Routes of HIV Transmission’ resource to help teachers and other educators challenge stigma and misconceptions about HIV.
It was developed with input from people living with HIV and HIV charities and has been piloted in dozens of schools.
Designed as a classroom pack, It has 16 sets of the activity in a sturdy box with a set of instructions so that, in an average UK classroom, learners can work in pairs.
To fund the initial production of the resource, we have launched it as a Kickstarter campaign.
If you want to help us get this resource off the ground, you can either give what you can as a donation at our Kickstarter page at www.bit.ly/KickstarterHIV or you can pledge to buy one of the first 25 units, if the Kickstarter is successful.
It will only cost you £25 plus P&P – the lowest price we will ever sell this resource for. That works out at a mere £1.56 for each set of 18 cards!