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‘It Starts With Me’

‘It Starts With Me’ brings home the message of how simple it can be to tackle the task of ending HIV, you just need to Test, Treat and Protect. Many people are afraid of what their results might bring, but putting off a test could cause even more damage. I tested positive in November 2009 and I’m pretty sure I contracted the virus just five months earlier, but in those short five months the virus had multiplied so rapidly there were 79,000 copies in each millilitre of my blood and my CD4 count (the measure of T-helper cells) had dropped to 213, a previous ‘healthy me’ probably had a count somewhere between 500-1000.

Because I tested my consultant was able to start me on treatment, within three months I saw a massive improvement, and the virus was undetectable…