Sports Relief

I'm not a great one for these celebrity fund raising shows but I've caught a bit of Sports Relief (I wanted to see Kelly Holmes) and was so upset by Annie Lennox's film that I had to give. Annie went to South Africa and met a 7 year old girl dying of AIDS. Her mother had AIDS when she was pregnant and the girl was born HIV+. She was painfully emaciated and, at 7 years old weighed the same as a 1 year old baby. And she was smiling. It was heartbreaking and, obviously, she was dying.


After an interview with Annie we were shown the second half of the film and we met a healthy looking 7 year old 5 months later. She'd been on the relevant medication and her life had turned around in the space of 5 months. She was still HIV+ of course, but has a chance of a more normal life.

I was reminded of when I worked in Fulham UBO in the late '80s and had a comparatively high caseload of HIV+ unemployed men, some of whom had moved to the area to receive treatment at St Stephen's Hospital. I suspect that most of my former 'clients' are now dead since the medication back then wasn't what it is today. I never got used to the massive changes in weight, appearance and health that could happen in the space of 2 weeks. That was the height of the 'gay plague' fears when people were scared of coming too close to HIV+ people 'just in case'.

The world has moved on and HIV+ is no longer a virtually automatic death sentence. The illness can be managed - not cured, unfortunately, but managed. And that makes it so appalling that a 7 year old is allowed to become so ill when medication is available. It's down to political will and money.

I might not be able to do much about the politics in places like South Africa but I can donate some money - donate here.