National HIV Testing Week
19-25th November is National HIV Testing Week in the UK. In coordination with HIV Prevention England (HPE) and the Terrence Higgins Trust, a national campaign called It Starts With Me, requests people to get tested, start treatment, and take action to protect yourself and those around you.
Also happening this week is European HIV-Hepatitis testing week, held 18 – 25th November, which has launched an international campaign to promote awareness and encourage people to get tested for HIV and or Hepatitis.
As of 2014, over 100,000 people were estimated to be living in the UK with HIV and 17% of those were considered undiagnosed and unaware of their infection. The severity of HIV can be lessened if it is diagnosed and treatments start early. It Starts With Me is calling for people to get tested at least once a year, and provides information on when and where you can get tested.
There are online resources available to answer questions, and statistics from Public Health England’s 2015 report on HIV in the UK. For information on how you can get involved in the national campaign, see the It Starts With Me website.
You can track the progress of the campaigns on twitter by following the hashtags #HIVTestingWeek, #HIV, #TestingWeek and #TestTreatPrevent.