An MP has revealed he’s residing with HIV throughout a Home of Commons debate.
Kevin McKenna, Sittingbourne and Sheppey MP, grew to become the third MP to share his HIV standing as he spoke in a debate in Westminster Corridor on Thursday.
Mr McKenna mentioned visiting associates with HIV in hospital as a younger man helped him to contemplate stepping into his former profession as a nurse.
Encouraging folks to “simply get examined”, he mentioned: “It’s just a bit scratch on the finger and there ought to be no stigma.”
The Labour MP, who was newly elected within the 2024 Normal Election, mentioned: “You will not cross this illness on once you’re handled.
“You will not endure. And actually it is boring and mundane.”
Mr McKenna was the third MP to talk brazenly about his HIV standing following Lord Chris Smith in 2005 and former Brighton Kemptown MP Lloyd Russell Moyle in 2018.
In his Commons speech, he mentioned: “I’ve lived a very long time as an HIV optimistic man.
“I’ve lived a very long time in my life beginning off with associates taking tablets that did have fairly extreme negative effects, some negative effects that have been very disagreeable and led to them nonetheless affected by HIV after which AIDS.
“Now it is whittled down to at least one pill a day – and as I get in to my fifties it sits alongside my statins and my arthritis remedy.
“By the point I used to be correctly popping out within the early 90s, I met numerous associates and lovers who had AIDS or HIV.
“I spent a number of time going to hospitals and it was there that I realised that nursing could be one thing that suited me.”
His assertion in Westminster Corridor got here as a part of a debate on HIV Testing Week, which takes place from 10 to 16 February.
Richard Angell, chief govt of Terrence Higgins Belief mentioned Mr McKenna’s assertion was “a massively important act however delivered as he would love it to be handled – as simply one other long run situation.”
He mentioned: “Kevin talked to the change in his lifetime. He exhibits that folks residing with HIV can not simply entry drugs which means they will stay a wholesome life and can’t cross on the virus however they will go on to succeed and serve our nation.
“At present Kevin has delivered a physique blow to HIV stigma and can proceed to alter hearts and thoughts in the way in which HIV is considered by most of the people.”
