Community sexual health center in Marseille: “we have to show that we need it”
Through Anne Bouaziz
Published on
“We must go towards this type of care and show that we need it” underlines Celine Offerle, president of the Aids association in the region Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur.
Recently, Marseilles is one of the four cities selected for the experiment community sexual health centers (CSSC). This system set up on the site of Spot located boulevard Longchamp, aims to reduce the number of discoveries of seropositivity. “We can see it in the United States where the figures are convincing with a 30% drop per year” comments Céline Offerle.
With this experiment, the center can offer a route “Test and treat” without an appointment then allowing beneficiaries to be screened using delocalized biology technology. “This allows us to have results for faster treatment,” explains the president of the association Aides en Paca.
And on the occasion of this 1uh December, world hiv day, the association is launching a campaign, “HIV does not prevent me from living, prejudices do”. In the file communicated by the association, we find several testimonies. Among them, that of Nicolas 26-year-old who wanted to express himself in the context of this campaign “because it is important to me (Nicolas, editor’s note) to participate in the visibility of HIV-positive people. I also want to transmit a message of hope to those who are not yet comfortable with their status, who do not dare to talk about it and who feel a little lonely with it ”.
Or that ofAndrea aged 29: “We have to be visible because we are part of people’s daily lives, without them necessarily knowing it. Some people still imagine us thinning on hospital beds… ”.
During this campaign, the association intends to raise funds in order to be able to finance prevention, screening and support actions for people living with HIV.
La Paca, third region most affected by the HIV epidemic
The Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region is the third metropolitan area most affected by the HIV epidemic, reports the latest report published by Public Health France which communicates several figures. Starting with the number of discoveries of seropositivity which decreased by 9% between 2017 and 2018 and 12% between 2015 and 2018.
This downward trend mainly concerns, says the report, men who have sex with men (MSM) born in France and more moderately heterosexuals born in France. This decrease can be explained by “ the results of the TasP strategy (treat all patients infected with HIV upon diagnosis in order to obtain and maintain an undetectable viral load and prevent further transmission of the virus) ”; but also by the deployment since 2016 of pre-exposure prophylaxis (Preperation).
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