In addition to Father Michael’s address, the 2012 World AIDS Day Event at the University of Limerick featured a lecture from Dr. Busi Mooka – Consultant in Infectious Diseases at Limerick Regional Hospital – on her experiences in treating HIV in Limerick.

Dr. Mooka spoke around stigma, testing, and the perceptions of persons living with HIV, as well as those of the clinicians treating them. Such behaviours can have significant implications for the way in which persons living with HIV present to care services, and much of the difficulty in providing that care comes with making those services available, visible, accessible, and acceptable to all.

Dr. Mooka then gave her expert perspective on various strategies that had been successfully implemented in other countries to improve HIV testing rates, and to normalise testing behaviours, in order to help support those who are living with HIV, but are as yet undiagnosed.