Prince Harry meets with LGBT people and other minorities living with HIV

Prince Harry has met with people living with HIV from at-risk groups as part of a new campaign to raise awareness about the virus.

The 32-year-old royal, whose brother William made history when he appeared on the cover of Attitude earlier this year, spent time with London-based sexual health charity Naz – a group dedicated to supporting sexual and racial minorities with HIV.

Harry’s mother, Princess Diana was renowned for her HIV/AIDS activism, having helped break down taboos about the illness by meeting with, shaking hands, and hugging people living with AIDS.

It marks the second time Harry has used his public platform to highlight issues surrounding HIV this year, after the man who’s fifth in line to the throne took a HIV test live on Facebook in July.

The Prince warned of complacency towards HIV since the advent of anti-retrovirals at the event, saying, “I don’t want to be here in 10 years talking to you guys and saying we’re making a difference. There’s no reason why we can’t turn this around in two or three years.

“Not talking about something can actually kill you. People are happy to talk about their youngest child having cancer, that might even kill them, but the other child who has HIV, they don’t talk about that.

“Thirty years ago it was pretty much a death sentence but so many people have put blood, sweat and tears into essentially fixing the problem. For some reason though there is a large group of people who don’t know that things have come so far.

“We have got to do this and people have got to hear it from you, they don’t want to hear it from me.”

Marion Wadibia, Naz’ chief executive, said: “The weight of his presence really resonated and if he can move that many people in four minutes we can really make a difference in the next two or three years.

“People were telling the Prince that they couldn’t really disclose to their own families because their families have set ideas about HIV.”

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