The CEO of a Northern Irish HIV charity has challenged the misconceptions which still exist surrounding the condition in Northern Ireland.
Speaking to Belfast Live, Jacquie Richardson from Positive Life talked of how their service users often face prejudice when accessing services including being discharged from dental practices, medical practitioners "double-gloving" to treat patients and misunderstanding that HIV can be transmitted through sharing cutlery.
This comes as the issue of a stigma surrounding HIV continues to be played out on our screens with EastEnders character Zack Hudson coming to terms with his diagnosis as a hetrosexual male.
Read more: Northern Ireland sees 12% increases in new HIV cases
"In Northern Ireland we still have a huge misunderstanding around HIV," she said.
"It is primarily due to a lack of awareness and a lack of current, accurate, up to date information and education.
"We are still very much wedded in what is essentially quite a conservative community to the myths and legacies that still remain from the 1980s campaigns and some of the misinformation that has originated there for example that HIV is a gay man's disease and that it is a death sentence."
Jacquie said that when Positive Life speaks to people as an organisation, quite often they are surprised to learn that a couple with one of the partners being HIV positive is able to successfully have a HIV negative child.
"We need to make much more of a concerted effort to raise awareness around some of those misunderstandings," she continued.
"We hear on a very regular basis how the stigma that uniquely surrounds HIV has a negative impact on our service users' lives.
"Day and daily we still hear stories about people accessing healthcare, where a healthcare professional will double-glove, where people are kept to the end of the day before they can access a dentist surgery and we have recently heard from one of our service users who has been discharged from their dentist because they are HIV positive.
"There are serious concerns there because we know that anyone who is living with HIV, is on the correct medication and has an undetectable viral load, that means that they cannot transmit their HIV on to anybody else."
Jacquie said that these are irrational actions that have a very negative and long lasting impact on the day to day living of Positive Life's service users.
In order to combat these misconceptions, Positive Life is campaigning for a consistent approach to relationship and sex education (RSE) in schools.
"If we can make sure that we are targeting the message in the appropriate ways which is age appropriate and delivered to the appropriate audiences, that will go a long way once people have a really good understanding of what HIV is and more importantly, what it is not," she added.
"One of the things we recognise is that we are a long way from getting a strategy that supports RSE in our schools so one of the things we have recently launched is a workplace education programme where we come in, talk to their staff about relationships, sexuality and all of the things that surround that which includes HIV and how it impacts people's lives."
Addressing some of the misconceptions around HIV, Jacquie stressed that it is untrue that HIV is a gay man's disease.
"The most recent statistics show, as they have over the last number of years, that we have an increasing number of people contracting HIV through hetrosexual relationships.
"We are also seeing an increasing number of women of a certain age contracting HIV.
"The other issue where there are a number of misconceptions is to how HIV is contracted, for example that it can be contracted through kissing, through sharing cutlery or cups. We know this to be untrue.
"We know that anyone who is on medication and has an undetectable viral load which makes it impossible for onward transmission."
Jacquie added that it is also untrue to suggest that HIV is a death sentence as people who have an early prognosis and are placed on the right medication live healthy, fulfilled lives.
Reflecting on the impact that storylines such as Zack's in EastEnders, Jacquie agreed that it creates awareness and challenges misconceptions around the condition.
"The Zack storyline starts the conversation, it raises awareness, it challenges the myths and it portrays a very positive storyline around living with HIV and how that can be dealt with."
You can access free and confidential advice regarding HIV by calling the Positive Life helpline on 0800 137 437.
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