My World AIDS Day 2022

A week on from World AIDS Day I’m reflecting on my busiest and most fulfilling one yet.

4 min readDec 8, 2022

Earlier I had my annual consultation with my HIV consultant at the Royal Free — I’m so incredibly lucky that ‘my numbers’ are the least interesting part of my chats with him.

In case you’re interested I’m still undetectable, of course thanks to universal access to treatment in the UK, and my CD4/T-cell count is 671.

With thanks to Aimee for the gorgeous photo

I’d like to share something I wrote for our Impulse London Bless This Brunch, which took place on Sunday.

We remember the loved ones we’ve lost, and we celebrate how far we’ve come — through the fun times as well as the tough times — by standing together as a community.

We renew our commitment to people living with HIV. We love and respect you. Our community simply wouldn’t be the same without you.

We admire your strength, and by wearing a red ribbon we show that we’ll always stand with you.

We’ll educate ourselves on U=U and tell others about it too, and we won’t shame people who take PrEP.

Ant, living with HIV for 15 years: “I Rock the Ribbon to commemorate, to celebrate and to show there’s more to do” — National AIDS Trust World AIDS Day campaign for 2022

We rightly concentrate on preventing people getting HIV and encouraging them to get tested, but far too often we forget about supporting people after an HIV diagnosis.

So, here are some excellent sources of peer support — the opportunity to speak to someone else living with the virus and to build a network of friends.

If you know someone who’s feeling isolated following an HIV diagnosis, please point them to one of these brilliant charities:

❤️ Body and Soul (Islington)

❤️ The Crescent (St Albans)

❤️ Living Well (Ladbroke Grove)

❤️ Metro (South East London)

❤️ NAZ (Hammersmith)

❤️ Plushealth (online)

❤️ Positive East (Bethnal Green)

❤️ Positively UK (Islington)

❤️ River House Trust (Hammersmith)

❤️ Terrence Higgins Trust (Central London)

Let’s get to zero new cases of HIV, and let’s get to zero stigma too.

This video from the Find Your Four campaign explains the power of peer support

HIV facts:

HIV [Human Immunodeficiency Virus] attacks the immune system and weakens the body’s ability to fight diseases.
Antiretroviral medication — also called ARVs, combination therapy, or HIV treatment — lowers the amount of the virus in the blood to undetectable levels, which stops it from damaging the immune system, and means it cannot be passed on to other people.
HIV treatment is now extremely effective and easier to take than ever before. Many people take just one or a few pills once a day.
A person with HIV should live just as long as an HIV-negative person — especially if they are diagnosed early and begin treatment.
There is still a great deal of stigma about HIV. Stigma is damaging as it prevents people from getting tested, from accessing treatment and from living a happy and healthy life.
Aids [Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome] can develop when HIV damages the immune system to such an extent that it can no longer fight off a range of often rare infections it would normally be able to cope with. In the UK, the term ‘late-stage HIV’ is now generally used as it is much less stigmatising. HIV treatment stops the virus from damaging a person’s immune system.
HIV cannot be passed on through casual or day-to-day contact. It cannot be transmitted through kissing, spitting, or sharing a cup, plate or toilet seat.

My World AIDS Day 2022

A week on from World AIDS Day I’m reflecting on my busiest and most fulfilling one yet.

HIV facts:

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Written by Ant Babajee | he/him