The elephant in the room – Anna Marie Galea
It’s easy for many to ignore World Aids Day. After all, HIV and AIDS have long been considered by many to be an issue that only concerns Africa and the LGBT community (even though we have been shown time and time again that it is not the case). However, opening the newspapers this morning and coming across an article full of local facts and figures, I could not let this day pass without comment. We are a country in desperate need of education, and this extends to sexual health. We have one of the highest rates of HIV transmission in Europe with 81 new cases of HIV recorded in 2020. As a side note, we also have the highest teen birth rate in southern Europe beating Greece, Spain, Italy, Cyprus, and Portugal. Statistics like these indicate that something in our system is going very, very wrong. While other countries have managed to get their numbers down, ours seem to keep climbing. The sexual health revamp we were promised has been delayed once again as the information that had already been collected over several years was found to be outdated. NGOs have called repeatedly for sexual health to be placed at the top of agendas, and yet politicians on both sides of the house continue...