NEWS

  • New PrEP interaction checker launches

    The University of Liverpool, working with the centre for experimental therapeutics, has launched a PrEP drug-drug interactions checker. Liverpool PrEP Interactions is a free tool that allows people taking PrEP to check for drug interactions that might interfere with the way their PrEP, or their other medications, might work. This new tool follows on from…

  • The HIV awareness charity, Saving Lives, worked across National HIV Testing Week to raise awareness of HIV as well as the challenges still faced by people living with the virus. National HIV Testing Week ran from 9th to 15th February 2026 across the UK.  Charities, NHS trusts and local government collaborated nationwide to raise awareness…

  • Saving Lives warmly welcomes today’s HIV Action Plan, and sees it as an extremely positive signal of society’s shared commitment to ending new HIV transmissions by 2030. Unveiled by the government today, the HIV Action Plan prioritises tackling stigma, powering testing and ensuring those diagnosed access today’s life-saving treatments. £170m has been allocated to delivery.…

  • Birmingham creatives are joining forces to give voice to people living with HIV in time for this year’s World AIDS Day – and they want the wider public to pay attention. Dancers, actors and visual artists will be performing and exhibiting their work at venues across the city centre on December 1st. And in every…

  • Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) has in recent years become a well established option for people looking to avoid infection with HIV. As Niamh Fleming-Kelb recently wrote for us, however, fewer women than men are taking the opportunities PrEP offers: less than 4% of all PrEP prescriptions in the UK are for women. Currently, PrEP most commonly comes…

  • Saving Lives One Blood Test at a Time … Great news just in from our home city… starting today, Tuesday 18th March 2025, all patients aged 16 and over who have bloods taken at the emergency departments of Heartlands and Good Hope Hospitals in Birmingham will be also be tested for HIV, hepatitis B, and…

  • If you are a woman living in the Birmingham Area  and are interested in taking part in the Purpose 5 Trial, please contact the Research team at Birmingham Heartlands HIV service  at  coreresearchteambhh@uhb.nhs.uk Or call 0121 424 2847 to see if the study is right for you. To qualify, you must be a sexually active woman over the…

  • The Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, has issued a joint statement with figures from across government, healthcare and the third sector redoubling a shared commitment to ending new cases of HIV in England by the start of the next decade. In the joint press release, Sir Keir says: With this government, you will not be…

  • New data from the UK Health Security Agency was published last Friday which showed a marked increase in rates of syphilis in our home region of the West Midlands. According to the new figures, between 2021 and 2023, diagnoses of infectious syphilis in the region rose to 736 in 2023, a 32% increase from 557…

  • New data from UKHSA that reveals a sharp rise in syphilis infections nationwide, and here in the West Midlands in particular, reminds us that syphilis has not gone away – and we must work harder to prevent it, diagnose it, and treat it. There are usually three stages of syphilis. The first, known as primary…