Lord Paddick has today spoken of his use of the HIV prevention drug PrEP in a personal story shared on the Prepster website.

In the post he tells of his enduring anxiety around HIV, stemming from the early days of the epidemic when he says he may have avoided HIV acquisition because he was “playing it straight” and married at the time.

The Northern Ireland Department of Health has announced a new £450K HIV Prevention Pilot to be funded through the Health Transformation Fund. Yusef Azad, Director of Strategy at NAT (National AIDS Trust), said:

Deborah Gold, Chief Executive of NAT (National AIDS Trust) said: “This proposed trial expansion, from 10,000 to 13,000 participants, is essential and we urge NHS England to confirm the decision urgently.  This expansion was first proposed by NAT as necessary to estimate accurately the likely long-term needs of a routinely commissioned PrEP programme and it’s great news that this is now on the table.

NHS England has announced that from September pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) will be available through the NHS as part of a three-year trial. This announcement comes a year and a day after an historic win for NAT (National AIDS Trust) at the High Court that confirmed the NHS’s legal ability to fund the drug, which stops people from getting HIV.

Data published today by NAT (National AIDS Trust), shows a significant decrease in spending on HIV prevention across the UK. In areas with a high HIV prevalence, where need is highest, spending dropped by 29% in two years. In London, where all 32 boroughs have a high prevalence of HIV, there was a 35% reduction in HIV prevention funding.