Funds Raised for Elton John AIDS Foundation Will Pay For Those At Risk To Be Able To Get Tested, And Will Make Sure They Have Access To The Treatment They Need.

Andrew Williams had never heard of the word HIV when he tested positive. It was his mother who had forced him to go to the doctor where he got the diagnosis that he thought was a death sentence.

At that time he was in a wheelchair. It was the unbearable itching of his back that finally got him to get medical help but, he discovered, he not only had HIV but diabetes, high blood pressure and kidney disease.

That was two years ago. This week, as the 31-year-old joined Sir Elton John and Evening Standard and The Independent owner Evgeny Lebedev in Atlanta to witness the revolutionary new breakthroughs against the disease at the city’s Grady Ponce De Leon Centre, there was no need for a wheelchair. Nor, he now knew, was there any need for fear.

Within two months of starting the latest antiretroviral drugs, the virus in his body had become undetectable in his blood. Not only is he now healthy, partly due to the drugs and partly due to the healthy lifestyle adopted for his other illnesses, but he can virtually not pass the infection to other people.

He feels, he says, “reborn”. “I have a reason to live,” he explained, “and that is to help people who were like me – and to show you’re going to be OK.”

It's always good to end the year with good news, and you can read the full article here.