The U.K. Government Is Mistakenly Texting HIV-Positive People Telling Them They Are At Severe Risk From COVID-19, But They Are Not
April 9, 2020The UK government started sending HIV-positive, healthy people who are on successful treatment automated text messages, telling them they must stay at home for at least 12 weeks or risk “severe illness’ from the coronavirus.
Current advice is that only HIV people who are not on treatment or have other health problems should follow shielded instructions and not leave their house for any reason.
The British HIV Association (BHIVA) has now written to the chief medical officer of England, Chris Whitty, seeking an explanation for the text from “UK_Gov”.
The text told recipients: “NHS Coronavirus Service: Your condition means you are at high risk of severe illness if you catch Coronavirus. Please remain at home for 12 weeks unless a healthcare professional tells you to leave. You will get a letter from the NHS to confirm this.”
BHIVA then issued a statement in an attempt to correct the error and reassure patients.
“We are aware that many people with HIV have today received a text advising them to ‘shield’,” said the statement. “We are looking into why this has happened but there remains no evidence that people with well controlled HIV need to shield.”
Dr. Laura Waters, an HIV consultant and chair of BHIVA, told ‘BuzzFeed News’ that “it seems like they've cast the net wider than we would recommend clinically”.
“We had people contacting us saying they'd been advised to shield but they're not entitled to government support because when you go on the website you have to have a condition on the list,” said Waters.
“So we created a BHIVA template letter to try and help and we've been gently pushing [the government] to include people who are vulnerable in terms of HIV-related factors," she said, but this was to no avail. Even though a link to the list was included in the text, it still does not mention HIV.
“And then suddenly with no warning at all it was people getting texts that triggered us finding out about it. BHIVA didn't know [and] the HIV CRG [the NHS's clinical reference group] didn't know what the Department of Health were going to come out with. So we were all a bit surprised.”
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