UK AIDS charity targets African immigrants

The Terence Higgins Trust (THT), a UK-based AIDS NGO, is working to promote safer sex among African immigrants in the southwestern city of Bristol. THT officials said the rising rates of HIV infection among immigrants in Britain was cause for concern after figures from the local Health Protection Agency revealed that 75 men and 145 women in the area had been diagnosed positive in 2004. Sue Peters, THT's Bristol-based regional manager, noted that women were hardest hit because men still called the shots when it came to condom use. "We need to empower men and women to negotiate condom use and take control of their sexual health," she told the BBC, saying she hoped the group's new 'Beyond Condoms' campaign would help achieve this.