By Will Castle

Cardiff University welcomed a national treasure to its campus as Gareth Thomas brought his myth-busting Tackle HIV campaign to the Welsh capital.

Tackle HIV is a public awareness and education initiative led by Wales rugby icon Thomas in partnership with ViiV Healthcare and Terrence Higgins Trust, inspired by his own experience living with HIV and the public misconceptions surrounding the virus. 

Embarking on a journey up and down to the country in the hope of altering public perceptions of HIV, the Tackle HIV team made the second of their three-stop tour of universities in Cardiff, with Thomas returning to his homeland to educate and inspire.

Given that young people are statistically the most likely to be diagnosed with a sexually transmitted infection, Thomas was delighted by the reception to the cause in Cardiff - with the university’s medics rugby team in particular expressing a profound openness to learn about HIV.

(Image: Sportsbeat)

“I feel because we're breaking down these myths and because we're breaking down these stigmatised barriers, people are not only getting empowered by the correct information but also wanting to be part of destigmatising themselves,” he said.

“To have the medics rugby team come down here felt like a kind of a sense of achievement, because you could say that wouldn't have happened five or ten years ago.

“It felt like a sense of reality of how far we have taken this campaign but also how far we've still got to go because even though they came down, they were still fully aware of the stigma that still is out there.

“Even today we spoke to a first year medicine student who thought you could still transmit HIV through the use of cutlery - and this is a medicine student. 

“They wanted to be a part of it because they realised the stigma is still there, but slowly and very surely, we are managing to chip away at that stigma.”

In the name of breaking down stigma surrounding HIV, the Tackle HIV team also completed the Pen y Fan challenge on September 27, with Thomas climbing the highest peak in South Wales ten times in the space of 24 hours - a feat equivalent to scaling Mount Everest.

ViiV Healthcare Head of Government Affairs and Global Public Health Helen McDowell has stressed just how vital this physical challenge is to their campaign, showcasing that there really are no limits to what you can achieve with HIV.

“We shouldn't limit or have a perception that living with HIV limits people and what they are capable of doing,” McDowell added. 

“It's also about raising awareness and making people think about HIV and not stigmatising people living with HIV. We're trying to raise awareness about HIV but also that you're not limited by living with HIV.

“The whole goal of this is myth busting. There's so many people who have beliefs and understandings of HIV that are stuck 10, 20 or 30 years ago, where HIV was very different and it was limiting to people who were impacted.  

“We're in a very different place now in 2024, and so that's why this challenge is so important, to demonstrate that it's not limiting.

“Actually, we'll see that Gareth will probably do this better than any of us in the team who are here as allies, and who aren't living with HIV, so it really isn't limiting at all.

Tackle HIV also stresses the importance of testing as the UK strives to become the first country in the world to stop any new cases of HIV transmission by 2030.

Terrence Higgins Trust chief executive Richard Angell says increased testing will be critical to the UK achieving its 2030 goal, with the ‘opt out’ scheme already producing stellar results.

“Thanks to Terrence Higgins Trust and our partners at National AIDS Trust and the Elton John AIDS Foundation, we convinced the government to spend money in A&Es across the country,” he said. 

“Places like Manchester, Brighton, Blackpool, London, Salford and others now are automatically testing people for HIV who come into A&E and are having a blood test.

“In 18 months we found over 1,000 people who had HIV and didn't know about it. Those people are now linked to care, getting the best treatment and many of them will now be undetectable which means they can't pass on the virus when they're having sex or having a baby.

“That's an amazing thing and so the programme has been really, really successful. It means we could be the first country in the world to end new cases of HIV and that's a pretty exciting thing to do and we're aiming to do it by 2030.”

Tackle HIV is a campaign led by Gareth Thomas in partnership with ViiV Healthcare and Terrence Higgins Trust and aims to tackle the stigma and misunderstanding around HIV. For more information visit tacklehiv.org and follow @tacklehiv