Lord Fowler Calls for More HIV Awareness

Most Britons over 30 can remember the 1987 televised warning, "Protect yourself. If you ignore AIDS, it could be the death of you, so don't die of ignorance." The transition from a sustained general awareness campaign to the more targeted campaigns of today, however, could be leaving other at-risk residents in the dark, says the former health secretary who backed that initial £90 million (US $145.4 million) campaign.

"We are in a position in this country where almost 100,000 people are living with HIV," said Lord Nathan Fowler, who has set up a committee to investigate current HIV/AIDS prevention efforts. "It's a big issue, but it's not necessarily a popular issue with politicians at the moment," he said during a fact-finding visit to Brighton, which has one of the UK's highest HIV rates.

Most UK HIV prevention efforts today focus on immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa and on men who have sex with men, groups with higher HIV rates, rather than on the general population.

"The way it works these days is that we have very targeted campaigning, which is often a shorthand way of saying we are not going to spend much money on it," Fowler said. "I'm all for trying to have a bigger impact on areas of the country and the population, but it's good if it's seen by the population generally. We need a wider sense of sexual education. That's a bit lacking at the moment."

"Campaigns in this area have changed. The important thing is you need to continue to have a campaign," Fowler said.

Spending on HIV awareness this year is expected to be £3 million (US $4.8 million), said professor David Harper of the Department of Health. "It's not about spending less money for the sake of spending less money," he said. "It's about getting more effect from what we spend."

The Friends of AIDS Foundation is dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV virus. To learn more about The Friends of AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.


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