Rio Calling: Isolation
Featuring: Dr Tristan Barber (BHIVA), Kene Esom (HIV policy & human rights), Dr Laura Waters (HIV/sexual health medicine), Simon Collins (HIV treatment advocacy), Eliane Becks Nininahazwe (HIV activism & arts), Pank Sethi (HIV advocacy & photography), Sita Shahi (HIV advocacy — women), Brenda Crabtree-Ramírez (HIV research & medicine), Maxx Boykin (HIV policy & organising), Olimbi Hoxhaj (HIV advocacy), Knowledge Mupembe (harm reduction & HIV), Antonio Flores (HIV/TB medicine — MSF), Davide Scalenghe (global health communications), Christabel Millar (HIV community advocacy), Damien Fagan (pharmaceuticals — Gilead), Michael (gay & bisexual network — Tanzania), Andrea Carolina (HIV & pharmacy access — Colombia), Derrick Mapp (HIV), Derrick Powell (HIV retention navigation), Joan Steven (HIV community facilitation), Sarah (HIV advocacy — women), Jonathan Blake, Eli Fitzgerald, Garry Brough, Peter Willis.
The series closes on the cost that rarely finds its way into official reports. Dan Hall and dan glass end their week in Rio asking what's been lost as HIV's physical spaces have gone digital or disappeared, with Dr Tristan Barber of BHIVA closing the series with a clinical perspective on what peer support still can't be replaced by.
Archive testimony comes from Jonathan Blake, diagnosed in October 1982 among the first in Britain, on standing in the darkest corner of the room; Eli Fitzgerald, a trans man born with HIV who works in peer support for young people, on chosen family and being loved because of his status, not in spite of it; Garry Brough, diagnosed in 1991 and now a builder of peer support programmes across the sector, on twenty years of sitting opposite the newly diagnosed; and Peter Willis, a retired GP and at eighty-three the oldest voice in the archive, on stigma and isolation among older people living with HIV.
Links
- BHIVA
- HIV i-Base
- AIDS 2026, the 26th International AIDS Conference
- Positively UK, peer-led support, advocacy and information
- Terrence Higgins Trust
Extra Special Thanks Anonymous, Careen Hertzog, Peter Staley, Philippe Cahill, Simon Collins, Soleta Rogan, Tom McKitterick
Thanks Adam Price, Alix Fox, Apostolos James Vogiatzis, Bryn Gay, Emma20Cole, Garry Brough, Moray Laing, Ross Fletcher, Sarah Schulman, Siobhán Allison
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp
