Kevin McKenna: Kent MP shares in Commons he is HIV positive
An MP has revealed he is living with HIV during a House of Commons debate.Kevin McKenna, Sittingbourne and Sheppey MP, became the third MP to share his HIV status as he spoke in a debate in Westminster Hall today.Mr McKenna said visiting friends with HIV in hospital as a young man helped him to consider getting into his former career as a nurse.Encouraging people to "just get tested", he said: "It is just a little scratch on the finger and there should be no stigma."
The Labour MP, who was newly elected in the 2024 General Election, said: "You won't pass this disease on when you're treated. "You won't suffer. And honestly it's boring and mundane."Mr McKenna was the third MP to speak openly about his HIV status following Lord Chris Smith in 2005 and former Brighton Kemptown MP Lloyd Russell Moyle in 2018.In his Commons speech, he said: "I have lived a long time as an HIV positive man."I have lived a long time in my life starting off with friends taking tablets that did have quite severe side effects, some side effects that were very unpleasant and led to them still suffering from HIV and then AIDS."Now it's whittled down to one tablet a day - and as I get in to my fifties it sits alongside my statins and my arthritis medication."By the time I was properly coming out in the early 90s, I met lots of friends and lovers who had AIDS or HIV."I spent a lot of time going to hospitals and it was there that I realised that nursing would be something that suited me."
'A blow to HIV stigma'
His statement in Westminster Hall came as part of a debate on HIV Testing Week, which takes place from 10 to 16 February.Richard Angell, chief executive of Terrence Higgins Trust said Mr McKenna's statement was "a hugely significant act but delivered as he would like it to be treated - as just another long term condition."He said: "Kevin talked to the change in his lifetime. He shows that people living with HIV cannot just access medicine that means they can live a healthy life and cannot pass on the virus but they can go on to succeed and serve our country."Today Kevin has delivered a body blow to HIV stigma and will continue to change hearts and mind in the way HIV is viewed by the general public."
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