As we marked World Aids Day yesterday I have asked that the city council ensures that support services for people living with HIV in our area are protected.

Thanks to effective treatment, people diagnosed promptly with HIV and on treatment today can live a full life with a near normal life expectancy.

But services to support their physical, social and emotional wellbeing are still vital to ensure that a life with HIV is a happy and healthy one.

This becomes ever more important with increasing numbers of people living with HIV approaching later life.

Recent figures from Public Health England show that a quarter of people living with HIV in the UK are unaware they have the condition, and 42% of diagnoses were made after the point when a person should have started treatment.

Undiagnosed and late diagnosed HIV must come down through increased HIV testing.

People would be more willing to test if they knew that on the other side of an HIV diagnosis there will be services there to help them.

Support services for people who are living with HIV in the area definitely need to be maintained.

Johan Roos