London’s sexual health clinic 56 Dean Street aims to beat HIV for good and achieve ZERO new infections in London’s gay men with their new campaign Plan ZERO.
To help achieve this, they have produced a new online tool, Plan ZERO, to provide quick advice and support to help gay and bisexual men reduce the risk of HIV while living lifestyle they want.
Plan ZERO is the latest initiative from 56 Dean Street, which reported a 42% drop in new HIV diagnoses in just 12 months. Only 393 new cases of HIV were reported over the course of 2016, down from the 679 cases in 2015.
This is significant as 56 Dean Street accounts for one in nine new HIV diagnoses in the UK and is Europe’s largest sexual health clinic. This decline in new diagnoses was also confirmed by many other London clinics. If the trend continues, the clinic’s experts believe there is a real possibility that HIV could be entirely eradicated in the UK.
Plan ZERO builds on the success of 56 Dean Street’s award-winning ‘PRIME’ programme.
The clinic developed PRIME’s online support package for high risk gay men. Men were offered PRIME if they had a characteristic suggesting they had a 10% risk of becoming HIV positive per year (e.g. A recent rectal sexually transmitted infection). The outcomes of the programme have been impressive, with less than 1% of men on PRIME catching HIV each year.
“HIV rates have fallen dramatically since 2015, but in the last few months things have stabilised. We need to step things up to get it falling further.” said Dr Alan McOwan, lead clinician at 56 Dean Street. “We finally have the tools to end HIV. Project ZERO brings them together into one package. 56 Dean Street is calling on all gay men to take a few seconds to help drive down HIV by answering the 5 ‘Plan ZERO’ questions. We will beat HIV if we all act together.”
The Plan ZERO tool takes seconds to complete, but the impact is immeasurable. By answering a few simple questions, the tool provides easy-to-understand advice about how to reduce the risk of HIV infection whatever your sex life, both for people who are already positive and those without the virus.
Whether you want to take a break from sex, have sex with a regular partner or partners, use condoms, or take pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), the tailored advice is suitable for everyone.
Even if you take no precautions at all, the tool provides advice to reduce the risk of infection and to catch HIV early – this can reduce the harm it can do to the body and limit the risk of infecting others.
56 Dean Street is a state-of-the-art sexual health clinic located in the heart of London’s West End. It offers free on-the-spot HIV testing and hepatitis B vaccinations for gay and bisexual men, as well as wider sexual health advice and services. 56 Dean Street offers convenient opening hours, including four evenings a week and Saturdays.
For more information about Plan Zero, click here: