Kent MP shares in Commons, he is HIV positive
An MP has revealed that he is living with HIV during the House of Commons debate.
Kevin McCaina, SittingBorn and Sheppi MPs became the third MP to share their HIV status while talking in a debate at Westminster Hall on Thursday.
Mr. McCena said that friends with HIV in the hospital helped to consider in his former career as a young man.
Encouraging people “just to test”, he said: “It is a little scratch on the finger and there should be no stigma.”
Labor MPs, who were elected new in the 2024 general election, said: “When you treat you will not pass the disease.
“You won’t suffer. And honestly it is boring and worldly.”
Mr. McCaina was the third MP to speak openly about his HIV status in 2005 and after Lord Chris Smith and Former bright bright Kamptown MP Lloyd Russell Moyle in 2018.
In his Commons speech, he said: “I have lived for a long time as an HIV positive man.
“I have lived for a long time in my life that start with friends who had quite serious side effects, some side effects that were very unpleasant and still suffering from HIV and then AIDS.
“Now it is at the bottom of a tablet in a day – and as I meet in my fifties, it sits with my Statin and my arthritis.
“When I was coming out properly in the early 90s, I met a lot of friends and lovers who had AIDS or HIV.
“I spent a lot of time to visit the hospitals and it was there that I realized that the nursing would be something that optimizes me.”
His statement in the Westminster Hall came as part of a debate on HIV test week, which is from 10 to 16 February.
Richard Angel, Chief Executive Officer of Terence Higgins Trust, said Mr. McKenna’s statement “was a very important task, but as he would like to treat it – only as another long -term position.”
He said: “Kevin spoke to a change in his lifetime. He shows that people living with HIV cannot use only medicine, which means they can live a healthy life and do not pass on the virus. Can, but they can go to succeed and serve our country.
“Today Kevin has given a body blow for HIV stigma and will continue to change the heart and mind in the way HIV is seen by the general public.”
