Preliminary results from a survey of stigma and discrimination conducted by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) show that people living with HIV in Europe are as likely to have experienced stigma in recent years as they were a decade ago. This is particularly the case with some types of stigma experienced in healthcare settings, where the fear of stigma, and to some extent the reality, are if anything stronger than ever. These early results were announced at the fifth Standard of Care for HIV and Co-infections in Europe meeting organised by the European AIDS Clinical Society (EACS) in Brussels last week.
The survey was devised in collaboration with three community organisations: the European AIDS Treatment Group (EATG), AIDS Action Europe, and the UK’s National AIDS Trust.
It also uncovered a strong link between state of health and the experience of stigma and discrimination. People who rated their health as ‘bad’ or ‘very bad’ were more than twice as likely as those with good health to have been threatened or verbally or physically abused by family or friends, or to have been excluded from family activities.
A smaller survey conducted recently in Ireland, largely answered by healthcare workers who were not HIV specialists, found that although 83% claimed knowledge of ‘Undetectable = Untransmittable’ (U=U) and treatment as prevention, 40% said they would still be nervous about drawing blood from a person with HIV. Many took unnecessary precautions such as wearing gloves or even two pairs of gloves at all times when treating people with HIV.