Reuters
Britain’s Prince Harry said on Thursday he felt compelled to try to complete his mother Princess Diana’s work in combating HIV and the stigma surrounding it by asking people to get tested for the disease. .
Diana shook hands with AIDS patients at a London hospital in 1987, a move that was seen as a milestone in the battle against prejudice around people with the virus, and Harry has also become a prominent activist for the cause.
“My mother’s work was unfinished,” he told former Wales rugby team captain Gareth Thomas, who announced in 2019 that he was HIV positive, in a video to mark National HIV Testing Week.
“I feel obligated to try to continue this as long as possible. I could never, you know, take her place, especially in this particular space….”
The World Health Organization estimates that there were around 38 million people living with HIV at the end of 2020, and that AIDS-related illnesses have killed more than 36 million since their inception in the 1980s.
Leading HIV/AIDS charities hope that wider testing could lead to an end to new HIV cases in England by 2030.
Harry underwent an HIV test in 2016, which prompted a 500% increase in requests for tests from a charity, he said. But, according to Harry, HIV tests have dropped by about 30% during the Covid-19 pandemic.
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