Who began the myth of ‘HIV health tourism’?
From the mid-to-late 1990s, the migration of people from high prevalence countries to the UK began to forever change the demographics of HIV. This change, alongside increased new HIV diagnoses acquired in the UK via sex between men and better survival of people previously diagnosed with HIV due to the advent, in 1996, of potent antiretroviral therapy, led to genuine concerns within the HIV sector about the lack of adequate NHS funding for HIV treatment and care. These concerns hit the mainstream in 2003, when articles in The Spectator3 and The Daily Telegraph 4 began to fan the flame of xenophobic and anti-immigration sentiment, adding to concerns over limited NHS resources, and fears of foreigners bringing disease with them and ‘spreading’ it to the UK population. The articles, which were based purely on conjecture and anecdotal evidence, painted an inaccurate but compelling picture suggesting that: asylum seekers are primarily Black African; that most Black Africans are infected with
