New HIV warning for World Cup fans
Football fans who visited the South African World Cup tournament are being advised to get their HIV status checked by those working UK locum jobs for doctors if they engaged in unprotected sex.
As many as 25,000 England fans have returned from South Africa, a country which is estimated to have as many as six million HIV sufferers. Over 65 percent of heterosexual men and around 25 percent of women who contract the virus do so during unprotected sex while on holiday.
A new campaign called ’Beer Goggle Johnny’s Guide to Sexual Health'has been initiated by Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham and is supported by government organisations. Sexual health and HIV consultant, Dr Steve Taylor, who works for the hospital said that almost 20 percent of young South African adults were infected with HIV. However, he said that across South Africa there were significant local variations and that in some areas the number of young adults with HIV may be one in three.
While there is greater awareness of the dangers of practicing unsafe sex now, Taylor said that many people were still failing to act responsibly when they go out on holiday to countries with high rates of HIV. He urged anyone who was unsure of whether they may have contracted a sexually transmitted infection to attend a sexual health screening immediately after their return to the UK. The Beer Goggle Johnny’s Guide is a campaign which aims to be ’amusing and engaging'and has been backed by the BASHH (British Association for Sexual Health and HIV) as well as the THT (Terrence Higgins Trust).
BASHH’s Peter Greenhouse said that people infected with HIVs risk passing on the virus to others if they do not get a check-up. He said that early testing and treatment would mean better long-term health implications for HIV-infected individuals and would reduce the risk of the disease passing on to other people.
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