Calls for all women accessing abortion services to be HIV tested

1 December, 2010

On World AIDS Day, Marie Stopes International is urging more Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) to provide HIV testing to women who are accessing unplanned pregnancy services.

It comes after the Health Protection Agency warned last week that a quarter of the estimated 86,500 people in Britain with HIV are unaware of their positive status, with women making up a growing percentage of HIV positive people.

Britain’s leading independent sexual and reproductive healthcare Marie Stopes International, has provided HIV tests to more than 3000 women in the past year after expanding it services from two clinics to all of its nine centres.

Currently 15 PCTs offer HIV testing to women coming to Marie Stopes International Centres for unplanned pregnancy services.

Tracey McNeill Vice President and Director of UK and Western Europe at Marie Stopes International said:

”All women who have had unprotected sex are at risk of sexually transmitted infections and should be routinely tested for HIV.

“Women and men who are diagnosed early with HIV are more likely to respond better to treatment and lead a long and healthy life and it allows them to protect their partners from the infection. Early diagnosis also allows women to prevent the spread of the infection to any future children they give birth to.”

Marie Stopes International also offers a number of leading HIV testing and prevention programmes in countries with some of the highest rates of HIV in the world.

Find out more about our programmes preventing HIV transmission from mother to baby in Kenya.

Or our innovative programme in Tanzania which is reaching out to police, a group that is at very high risk of HIV.

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Media contact: +44 (0) 20 7034 2389 (m) +44 (0) 7769 166 516

Notes to editor

Marie Stopes International
Marie Stopes International is Britain’s leading independent sexual and reproductive health provider, delivering services to more than 100,000 clients across nine centres each year. We are an outcomes-driven health service provider, delivering high quality care and clinical excellence. Marie Stopes International is a not-for-profit organisation providing contraception, abortion, vasectomy, female sterilisation, STI testing and treatment and health screening. Globally, Marie Stopes International delivers family planning and sexual healthcare to more than six million people in 44 countries annually. For more information visit www.mariestopes.org.uk

Categories: Africa; Abortion; HIV / STIs

01/12/2010

Calls for all women accessing abortion services to be HIV tested

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