The official launch of the HIVsport web site took place in River Room of the House of Lords last month. The site is now live and is accessible at www.hivsport.org.
Kindly hosted by Baroness Joyce Gould, the event was attended by leading figures from sports organisations and practitioners in the fields of sexual health and HIV/AIDS.
Keynote speakers were the Rt. Hon. Tessa Jowell MP, Minister for the Olympics, Barry McGuigan MBE, former world featherweight champion and Gordon Taylor OBE, Chief Executive of the Professional Footballers Association.
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The event was held jointly with the Educational Sports Forum (ESF) to which HIVsport affiliates.
Gordon Taylor emphasised the importance of professional footballers acting as role models and noted the excellent work done by players such as Ryan Giggs in promoting awareness of HIV/AIDS through their work with UNICEF.
Baroness Gould spoke about the pressing need to maintain vigilance and resources to improve the sexual health of young people and to turn back the rise in HIV infections seen recently in the UK.
Tessa Jowell, Minister for the London Olympics, impressed upon the audience the need for the London Olympics to leave a lasting legacy of improved health for all people including sexual health.
She commended the work of the 2012 London Olympics Sexual Health Planning Group of which HIVsport is a member and hoped that the Group could make a significant contribution to ensuring that the London Olympics meet best practices in encouraging good sexual health among competitors, visitors and others involved, including construction workers who are at the Olympic site now.
Former World Featherweight Champion, Barry McGuigan, congratulated HIVsport for raising awareness of HIV/AIDS in sport and commented that it was particularly apt within his own sport of boxing where special care has to be taken to avoid the risk of transmission of blood borne viruses
The evening ended with a short speech from Alan Irwin, Chief Executive of the ESF who placed particular importance on raising awareness of HIV/AIDS in the forthcoming World Cup year when the tournament will be held in South Africa, a country that has been badly affected by the HIV epidemic.
