Audrey Boumier is the coordinator in Pays de la Loire of the Committee for the fight against sexually transmitted infections. She was the guest of the 6/9 of France Bleu Mayenne and France 3 this Monday, May 23. For her, the conclusion is clear: “Today, there is a somewhat distorted representation of HIV. We think we can live with it. Moreover, the use of the condom is in decline, and especially the knowledge of the modes of transmission of this disease are not any more there. There is also a need to strengthen sexual health education in general, not just about AIDS.”
Other sexually transmitted diseases on the rise
Remember the major AIDS prevention campaigns in the 80s and 90s, from condoms to one franc. Today, the approach is no longer the same, admits Audrey Boumier:_“The idea is to talk more positively about sexual health_to be able to talk about HIV, not to take the angle of fear of the disease to talk about sexual health globally, this is perhaps why we have the impression that we talk about it less, but it has been shown that talking about things in a positive way makes it possible to better appropriate prevention messages. We have to communicate about all the tools we have in our possession to fight diseases because it’s not just HIV, there are also all the other sexually transmitted diseases which unfortunately are constantly increasing, for example syphilis and chlamydia.”
A third of people screened are at a late stage
We counted only last year, a hundred positive HIV tests in Pays de la Loire. Late screening in a third of cases and this worries Audrey Boumier: “CThis is where you have to accentuate the messages and try to reach people as soon as possible. If we arrive with a weakened immune system, that means that we have lived perhaps five or ten years with the virus without knowing it and therefore the whole issue is to seek out people who today do not know their HIV status. Today the treatments are so powerful that we no longer transmit the disease to our partner(s). and just like that, we would be able to break the chain of HIV transmission.”
Talk positively about sexuality
The prevention campaign of the committee for the fight against sexually transmitted infections and the ARS does not directly address the subject of HIV but advocates sexual health without taboos, adds Audrey Boumier. “We are on a positive and global approach to things. Sexual health is above all a development of oneself. We seek to overcome certain clichés such as the false representations that we see on social networks through pornography and cyberbullying. The idea is to have a positive approach to be able to tackle less funny things like illness, violence, street harassment.