Volume 6 Number 10 October 2005

This issue contains further reports from the IAS conference in Rio, specifically looking at hepatitis coinfection and resistance studies.

Two new features are now available relating to subscribing to HTB on the i-Base website. One is an RSS news feed, which will allow main contents of each issue to be available through a news reader on your web-browser. The second is a similar facility for use on handheld PDA organisers.

There is also a new Portuguese translation of the June 2005 Introduction to Combination Therapy guide. This is available as a PDF file on the i-Base home page, and would be useful for UK clinics with Portuguese speaking patients.

We would like to use the rest of this editorial space to raise the issue of access to treatment for asylum seekers in the UK and related to the policy of disperal, and to ask for your help. We have heard of many distressing individual examples and it is important to collect more detailed examples of current practice.

A survey is being organised by the National AIDS Trust to ensure that asylum seekers living with HIV have access to adequate and ongoing HIV treatment and care, and that no harm should be caused to asylum seekers during the process of dispersal to new areas of residence.

This survey of health professionals is to collect information in order to provide recommendations for the National Asylum Support Service about improving procedures, ensuring continuity of HIV care and treatment through the dispersal process.

The questionnaire has already been distributed to some members of BHIVA, however NAT would welcome the views of other health professionals who have worked/are working with asylum seekers living with HIV.

Please contact NAT policy officer Hannah Bate on 020 7814 6756 for further nformation, or email: hannah.bate@nat.org.uk

Completed copies of the survey need to be returned by Monday 17th October to the same email address, or by post to National AIDS Trust, New City Cloisters, 196 Old Street, London EC1V 9FR.