HIV/AIDS

The Sussex Beacon has made history with its latest LGBTQIA+ initiative.

On 16 July, the Brighton-based charity announced that it was “refreshing its approach to palliative and end of life care services,” by becoming Britain’s first hospice dedicated to the LGBTQIA+ community.

Under the “landmark development,” The Sussex Beacon will offer inclusive care with expertise in specialist HIV care.

While the organisation is setting up a new one-of-a-kind hospice service, it has decades of experience offering accessible health care for those living with HIV.

Since 1994, The Sussex Beacon has been a prominent and cherished resource for local residents in the Brighton and Hove, as well as the surrounding Greater Sussex communities.

In a statement, CEO Rachel Brett expressed her excitement over the charity’s incredible feat.

“The LGBTQ+ community built The Beacon, and now we will be giving it back, stronger and more inclusive than ever. It was originally founded to offer care in a safe, accepting space for people dying with AIDS-related illnesses,” she said.

“Thanks to advances in HIV treatment, our focus has moved to ensure that people across local communities are getting the help and support they need. Further to this, we are delighted that we can use the fantastic facility that we have to refresh our offer of hospice care for the LGBTQ+ community.”

Fortunately, the new inclusive palliative care will be delivered with the support of the NHS. However, to achieve long-term sustainability, The Sussex Beacon will be relying on charitable funding.

“It’s fair to say we need our community behind us now more than ever. The next few years will be challenging as we make this transition, but with collective support, we’ll create something truly transformative,” Brett concluded.

In a separate statement, Deputy Chief Medical Officer at NHS Sussex, Amy Dissanayake, showcased support for The Sussex Beacon, writing: “We are delighted to be working with The Sussex Beacon as they make this step to enhance the high-quality service they can provide to the local community.

“In addition to the hospice care, their experience in providing specialist community care for people living with HIV is invaluable and fully supports our ambition to bring care out of hospitals where possible, and into communities, either in people’s homes directly or in their local neighbourhood at community hubs.

“We look forward to continuing to work with the team at The Sussex Beacon to make this a reality for our population.”

In addition to offering inclusive palliative care, the longstanding charity will serve as a national resource to other hospices seeking to enhance their services for LGBTQIA+ patients.

For more information on The Sussex Beacon and their new LGBTQIA+ inclusive initiative, click here.

United Nations 2025 Global AIDS Update says if funding not replaced, Trump’s cuts may reverse ‘decades’ of progress on HIV/AIDS.

Unless funding is replaced, the halt to foreign aid by the administration of US President Donald Trump could reverse “decades of progress” on HIV, the United Nations warns in its annual report on HIV/AIDS.

The United States’ decision to make cuts to the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) could result in six million extra HIV infections and four million more AIDS-related deaths by 2029, according to the 2025 Global AIDS Update released on Thursday.

“HIV programmes in low- and middle-income countries have been rocked by sudden, major financial disruptions that threaten to reverse years of progress in the response to HIV,” the UNAIDS report said.

“Wars and conflict, widening economic inequalities, geopolitical shifts and climate change shocks – the likes of which are unprecedented in the global HIV response – are stoking instability and straining multilateral cooperation,” it added.

According to the report, people acquiring HIV and those dying from AIDS-related causes were at their lowest levels in “more than 30 years”.

However, by the end of 2024, the decline in numbers was “not sufficient” to end AIDS as a public threat by 2030.

Still, the report found that an estimated 1.3 million people acquired HIV in 2024, 40 percent less than in 2024.

In new infections, there was a 56 percent decline in sub-Saharan Africa, which is home to half of all people who “acquired HIV globally in 2024”.

“Five countries, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa, were on track to achieve a 90 percent decline in new infections by 2030 compared with 2010,” the UN added.

However, the significance of Trump’s cut to the programme is immense, as the US was the largest donor of humanitarian assistance worldwide.

“The sudden withdrawal of the single biggest contributor to the global HIV response disrupted treatment and prevention programmes around the world,” the report said.

While many countries still have enough life-saving antiretroviral drugs and clinics that support those most vulnerable to the infection – including gay men, sex workers and teenage girls – the cut in funding has forced the facilities to close down and prevention programmes to peter out.

UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima told the Reuters news agency that “prevention was hit harder than treatment” by the cuts.

“Key populations were the worst affected … they depended on tailored services by community leaders, and those were the first to go,” Byanyima said.

However, even before Trump made the decision to scale back the support shortly after coming into office in January, donors, mainly European countries, were scaling back development assistance.

“They’ve told us that it has to do with defence spending,” she said, adding that figures showed “global health [spending] peaked and then it also started declining with the Ukraine war”.

PEPFAR was launched in 2003 by US President George W Bush, and is the biggest-ever commitment by any country focused on a single disease. UNAIDS called the programme a “lifeline” for countries with high HIV rates.