“It’s a Sin” author Russell T. Davies warns: “The fight against HIV is not over yet”

It’s a Sin author Russell T Davies warned: “The fight is not over” when it comes to eradicating HIV.

He said misinformation about the virus had left him “despairing” and warned we must not “stumble into the future without looking back at the past”.

Davies’ warnings come as a warning from UNAIDS, the United Nations’ joint AIDS prevention program The global response to HIV had suffered its biggest setback in decades due to cuts in global funding.

It warned that failure to meet global HIV targets for 2030 could lead to an additional 3.3 million new HIV infections over the next five years.

The World Health Organization considers HIV to be a “major global public health problem” and estimated that 44.1 million people have died so far.

Although it has no cure, antiviral drugs developed in the 1990s allow patients to live long and healthy lives.

Davies, 62, recalled a time when fear of the virus was at the forefront of the public consciousness and deaths dominated the headlines.

“I was 18 in 1981, so I kind of experienced the epidemic that followed, held back and was horrified by it,” said the Swansea-born screenwriter.

He said that while he was concerned and angered by the misinformation and stigma that he believed still existed, he remembered “the heroes who stood up, made it count and fought.”

“There are great dangers looming. Now we have HIV denialism, which is a growing force … which is almost becoming political in some areas,” referring to the opinion he said was spreading online in the United States that HIV does not cause AIDS.

He added: “I am absolutely sure that the fight is not over and sometimes I am afraid that the fight is about to start again.”

It’s a Sin tells the story of a young group of friends in London at the height of the AIDS epidemic.

Davies, who is gay, is considered a pioneer of LGBTQIA+ drama and said it was “the great privilege” of his life to have written a show that allowed people to talk about a virus that had been surrounded by shame for so long.

“There isn’t a single day that someone doesn’t stop me and say how much this show meant to them,” he said.

According to the NHS, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a virus that weakens your immune system and increases the risk of serious illness.

It is most commonly spread through vaginal, anal, or oral sex with an HIV-infected person without using a condom.

AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) or late-stage HIV is the name for a number of serious diseases caused by the HIV virus.

With proper treatment, most people with HIV do not develop AIDS and can live long, healthy lives.

There are around 2,800 people living with HIV in Wales, according to Fast Track Cymru, a charity that aims to end HIV transmission in Wales.

There is a globally recognized target to end new transmission of the virus by 2030.

Mark Lewis, a senior policy adviser to Westminster’s all-party parliamentary group on HIV/AIDS, recalled the moment he found out he had been infected with the virus.

“I was kind of living a lie because I worked in the fields, I told other people, I kept a list but I didn’t tell my own family,” said the 43-year-old, originally from Carmarthenshire.

“I wasn’t worried about HIV because I thought it had gone away because it wasn’t in the news that much, and I thought I was an educated person myself.”

Mr Lewis said he experienced prejudice as a result of his diagnosis in 2018, including a dentist asking him whether it was safe for the clinic to treat him.

He also recalled an encounter with a gay bartender who neither knew what World AIDS Day was nor a pin worn by Mr Lewis that read “Can’t Pass It On” – a reference to the fact that you cannot transmit HIV if you receive effective treatment.

“That’s the problem, a lot of young people don’t know about it because we’ve come so far in treatment, prevention and all of that,” he said.

“We still have a long way to go.”

Dr. Olwen Williams remembers learning about the first reported cases of HIV in the UK in the 1980s while completing her medical studies in Liverpool.

She remembers being unable to find any information about the condition in her textbooks.

As a young doctor, she was originally from North Wales and then worked on an HIV ward in London at the height of the epidemic.

“It was pretty emotional because that was my group of peers that I was mentoring and meeting,” said the now 66-year-old.

“It was people in their 20s and 30s. It was just devastating what happened.”

Dr. Williams reflected on the joy she felt as a doctor when, thanks to modern medicine, she was able to tell people that they could live with HIV.

“It’s so phenomenal to be able to say in my life that I’ve seen something go from a terminal illness, a life sentence, to a chronic illness.”