Episodi

  • Winnie Sseruma: Silence, Scars, Solidarity

    Winnie Sseruma: Silence, Scars, Solidarity
    Aug 6 2026
    A Ugandan-born woman diagnosed with HIV in 1988 who went back to Africa to die, arrived in the UK with a CD4 count of one, and built a career spanning 20 countries in African health policy.SummaryWinnie Sseruma left Uganda on a scholarship to study sociology in Kansas in 1981. The students there asked her if she lived in a tree. By 1988, she was 27, back in the United States, and applying for an internship that required an HIV test. It came back positive. She told her partner, who blamed her, ghosted her, then called back weeks later to say his own test was negative. After that, Winnie stopped telling anyone. She sat through conversations where friends described how they'd treat an HIV-positive person - never eat in their house, never share a bathroom, never be friends - and said nothing.She was offered AZT, which she couldn't afford. The side effects turned her skin from shiny black to ashy. Between 1990 and 1993, her brother, her mother, and her father all died while she was trapped in the US. In 1994, she packed six months' worth of medication and flew to Uganda to die. When the pills ran out, she got TB, pneumonia, and diarrhoea. She nearly died, but a short trip to the UK saved her. At Newham General Hospital, her CD4 count was one.A Ugandan woman she'd met only briefly invited her to a place to socialise. It was a support group for people living with HIV. Winnie could see herself in the women there. She went from preparing to die to learning how treatment works - and it was, in her word, invigorating. She co-founded the African HIV Policy Network, chaired it from Parliament, co-wrote Our Stories Told by Us, and now monitors health programmes across 20 African countries for the Stephen Lewis Foundation.Key Moments[02:05] Kansas, 1981 - a scholarship, a culture shock, and students who thought Ugandans lived in trees[07:05] The positive result - an internship test in 1988, a death sentence at 27, and a life flashing before her eyes[08:58] Telling a partner - blame, rejection, being ghosted, and the lesson that disclosure was not safe[11:49] Conversations she sat through - friends describing how they'd never eat in the house of someone with HIV, while Winnie stayed silent beside them[12:37] AZT and its costs - paying for medication with no insurance, vomiting the pills back up, and a treatment that changed her skin colour[17:02] Four deaths in four years - a brother in 1991, a mother in 1990, a father in 1993, all from Uganda while Winnie couldn't leave the US[17:52] Going back to Uganda to die - six months of medication, then TB, pneumonia, and a CD4 count of one at Newham General Hospital[21:33] The Ugandan woman and the support group - an invitation framed as socialising, a room full of women telling their stories, and the moment Winnie stopped being alone[26:07] The African HIV Policy Network and Fed Up - supporting African women with HIV to engage with policy, and fighting a UK Department of Health that treated an entire continent as one community[39:54] Our Stories Told by Us - a book co-written with four friends to change the narrative about African communities and the UK HIV response[42:41] Remembering her brother - a gentle giant who died of HIV-related TB in 1991 at 27, the same age Winnie was when she was diagnosedDedicationWinnie remembers her brother, who died of HIV-related TB in 1991 at the age of 27 - the same age she was at diagnosis. She wants him to know he was loved.About Winnie SserumaWinnie Sseruma was born in Sheffield and raised in Uganda. She was diagnosed with HIV in 1988 in the United States. She co-founded the African HIV Policy Network, chaired it from Parliament, and co-wrote Our Stories Told by Us: Celebrating the African Contribution to the UK HIV Response. She works across 20 African countries monitoring health programmes for the Stephen Lewis Foundation.ResourcesBuy Our Stories Told By Us, the bookStephen Lewis FoundationNational AIDS TrustTerrence Higgins TrustPositively UKThe 2025–2030 UK HIV Action PlanIf you have been affected by the themes in this episode, support is available at tht.org.uk.This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp
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    48 min
  • SONG: Rethink Rebuild Rise (Rio Calling)

    SONG: Rethink Rebuild Rise (Rio Calling)
    Aug 2 2026
    Available now on Spotify and Apple Music.

    Apple Music / Spotify

    Profits from sales will go towards plugging the remaining £1k costs incurred in producing the #AIDS2026 specials, 'Rio Calling'.

    'Rio Calling' crowd-funder: https://hiv-the-morning-after.captivate.fm/rethinkrebuildrise

    LYRICS:[Verse 1]

    They came to Rio, sun and rain,

    the world arrived to talk again,

    with rights and science, hand in hand,

    and here Brazil, she took a stand.

    [Pre-Chorus]

    The funding's running dry,

    and pharma's flying high,

    they warned us: cuts bring death

    we answer with one breath:

    [Chorus]

    So rethink, rebuild and rise,

    raise the science to the skies,

    no access, that's no justice

    so open up your eyes.

    [Verse 2]

    They spoke of jabs beyond the pill,

    long-acting shots to fit the bill,

    so bNAbs — is it hope or hype?

    The cure's still climbing up the pipe.

    [Pre-Chorus]

    The funding's running dry,

    and pharma's flying high,

    they warned us: cuts bring death

    we answer with one breath:

    [Chorus]

    So rethink, rebuild and rise,

    raise the science to the skies,

    no access, that's no justice

    so open up your eyes.

    [Toast / Bridge]

    Now — U equals U, so hear me shout:

    undetectable, don't stress out!

    PrEP inna motion, long-acting too,

    communities leading - that's nothing new!

    Criminalised, but still we rise,

    harm reduction, open your eyes!

    From testing to treatment we hold the line

    rethink, rebuild, one more time!

    [Verse 3]

    We're ageing now, we're living long,

    they wrote a session, wrote this song,

    "live long, live strong," the doctors said,

    now mind your liver, heart and head.

    [Chorus]

    So rethink, rebuild and rise,

    raise the science to the skies,

    no access, that's no justice

    so open up your eyes.



    This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

    Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp
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    4 min
  • Rio Calling: Isolation

    Rio Calling: Isolation
    Aug 1 2026

    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.

    CROWDFUNDER LINK

    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
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    39 min
  • Rio Calling: Women and HIV

    Rio Calling: Women and HIV
    Jul 31 2026

    CROWDFUNDER LINK

    Featuring: Dr Tristan Barber (BHIVA), Sophia Strachan (Sophia Forum), Garry Brough (European AIDS Treatment Group), Dr. Brenda Crabtree-Ramírez (Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán), Sita Shahi (International Community of Women Living with HIV Asia Pacific), Dr. Laura Waters (The Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust), Kene Esom (United Nations Development Programme), Dr. Chinedu Emmanuel (mothers2mothers), Julie Foreman (BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS), Deborah Carpenter (FHI 360), Andrea Domânico (CRT DST/Aids-SP). Plus archive intervews with: Caroline Guinness, Susan Cole-Haley, Ellie Harrison, Angelina Namiba.

    The drug trials were run on men. The women were left to work out the rest for themselves. Dan Hall and dan glass mark AIDS 2026's focus on neglected groups, with Dr Tristan Barber of BHIVA opening and closing on the clinical case for research that finally caught up.

    Archive testimony comes from Caroline Guinness, co-founder of Positively Women and diagnosed in 1986, on trials that were never designed with women in mind; Susan Cole-Haley on the stranger who wrote to her after seeing her pregnant and positive on a magazine cover; Ellie Harrison, diagnosed at twenty-one, on searching for a woman like her and finding no one; and Angelina Namiba, diagnosed in London in 1993 and given six months to live, on the friend, the peer support, and the job that got her through.

    Links

    • BHIVA
    • HIV i-Base
    • AIDS 2026, the 26th International AIDS Conference
    • Sophia Forum, women and HIV
    • Sophia Forum, HIV and Women: Invisible No Longer

    Thanks Adam Price, Alix Fox, Anonymous, Apostolos James Vogiatzis, Bryn Gay, Careen Hertzog, Emma20Cole, Garry Brough, Moray Laing, Peter Staley, Philippe Cahill, Ross Fletcher, Sarah Schulman, Simon Collins, Siobhán Allison, Soleta Rogan, Tom McKitterick



    This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

    Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp
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    34 min
  • Rio Calling: Medical Progress vs Lived Reality

    Rio Calling: Medical Progress vs Lived Reality
    Jul 30 2026

    CROWDFUNDER LINK

    Featuring: Dr Tristan Barber (BHIVA), Antonio Flores, Damien Fagan (Gilead), ICWAP, Thorne Harbour Health, Derrick Mapp, Laura Walters (Gilead / NHS Royal Free Hospital), Luca Stevenson, Joan Stephen, Axel Bautista (Mpact Global Action), Derrick Powell, Brenda Crabtree, Maxx Boykin, Eliane Becks Nininahazwe, Fatima Hassan. Plus archive from Anthony Bird, Jim Vogiatzis, Mark S King and Chris Smith.

    The drugs worked, but conversations are rarely happened about what comes next. Dan Hall and dan glass spend Day Four of AIDS 2026 exploring the gap between the headline and the aftermath, with Dr Tristan Barber of BHIVA bookending the episode on managing a condition nobody's lived with this long before.

    Archive testimony comes from Anthony Bird, diagnosed in 1995 after an illness that nearly killed him, on an ordinary life once the side effects settled down; Jim Vogiatzis on the peripheral neuropathy that combination therapy left behind; Mark S King, an American writer and activist diagnosed in 1985, on the strange guilt of surviving after a decade spent preparing to die; and Chris Smith, Britain's first openly gay MP and the first parliamentarian to disclose his HIV status, on facing an uncertain future nearly forty years in.

    Links

    • BHIVA
    • HIV i-Base
    • AIDS 2026, the 26th International AIDS Conference
    • Positively UK, National Long Term Survivors Group
    • George House Trust, HIV support and peer mentoring

    Thanks Adam Price, Alix Fox, Anonymous, Apostolos James Vogiatzis, Bryn Gay, Careen Hertzog, Emma20Cole, Garry Brough, Moray Laing, Peter Staley, Philippe Cahill, Ross Fletcher, Sarah Schulman, Simon Collins, Siobhán Allison, Soleta Rogan, Tom McKitterick



    This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

    Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp
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    40 min
  • Rio Calling: Inequality and Intersectionality

    Rio Calling: Inequality and Intersectionality
    Jul 29 2026

    CROWDFUNDER LINK

    Featuring: Dr Tristan Barber (BHIVA), Andrea Carolina, Fatima Hassan, Derrick Powell, Sophie Strachan, Simon Collins, Eliane Becks Nininahazwe, Davide Scalenghe, Kene Esom, Pankaj Sethi, Winnie Sseruma, Louise Vallace, Reverend Jide Macaulay, "Jan".

    HIV has always found the margins first. Live from Rio, Dan Hall and dan glass connect UK testimony to the wider global picture, with Dr Tristan Barber of BHIVA opening and closing with the clinical picture.

    Archive testimony comes from Winnie Sseruma (episode drops 7 August), raised in Uganda and diagnosed in the United States in 1988; Louise Vallace (episode drops 28 August), a yoga therapist of Windrush Caribbean heritage, on shame in a small community where everyone knows everyone; Reverend Jide Macaulay (episode drops 21 August), a British Nigerian priest and founder of House of Rainbow, on his own father's support for a law that would criminalise him; and an anonymised contributor known only as "Jan", diagnosed while living in Turkey, on the state and the stateless.

    Links

    • BHIVA
    • HIV i-Base
    • AIDS 2026, the 26th International AIDS Conference
    • National AIDS Trust, Three ways the UK asylum system fails people living with HIV
    • National AIDS Trust, HIV in the UK: video guides for migrants

    Thanks Adam Price, Alix Fox, Anonymous, Apostolos James Vogiatzis, Bryn Gay, Careen Hertzog, Emma20Cole, Garry Brough, Moray Laing, Peter Staley, Philippe Cahill, Ross Fletcher, Sarah Schulman, Simon Collins, Siobhán Allison, Soleta Rogan, Tom McKitterick



    This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

    Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp
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    32 min
  • Rio Calling: Stigma

    Rio Calling: Stigma
    Jul 28 2026

    CROWDFUNDER LINK

    Featuring: Dr Tristan Barber (BHIVA), Carluz, Davide Scalenghe, Eliane Becks Nininahazwe, Joan Stephen, Kene Esom, Pankaj Sethi, Vincent LeClerc, Martin Fenerty, Marc Thompson, Nathaniel Hall, Alexander Cheves

    Not the tombstone-era kind. This one lives in your dating apps and your GP's waiting room. Dan Hall and dan glass spend Day Two of AIDS 2026 asking delegates where stigma still bites, with Dr Tristan Barber of BHIVA framing the episode with the clinical view from the consulting room.

    Archive testimony comes from Martin Fenerty, a counsellor and psychotherapist from Liverpool diagnosed in 1993, on having his confidentiality broken early in his diagnosis; Marc Thompson on U=U and the men who didn't believe him anyway; Nathaniel Hall (episode drops 11 September 2026), actor and theatre maker diagnosed at seventeen, on the fifteen years he kept his status secret and the case for saying it louder; and writer Alexander Cheves on naming shame as the real enemy.

    Links

    • BHIVA
    • HIV i-Base
    • AIDS 2026, the 26th International AIDS Conference
    • Terrence Higgins Trust, Stigma
    • Prevention Access Campaign, Undetectable = Untransmittable (U=U)

    Thanks Adam Price, Alix Fox, Anonymous, Apostolos James Vogiatzis, Bryn Gay, Careen Hertzog, Emma20Cole, Garry Brough, Moray Laing, Peter Staley, Philippe Cahill, Ross Fletcher, Sarah Schulman, Simon Collins, Siobhán Allison, Soleta Rogan, Tom McKitterick

    #AIDS2026 #RethinkRebuildRise



    This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

    Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp
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    21 min
  • Rio Calling: Global Funding

    Rio Calling: Global Funding
    Jul 27 2026

    CROWDFUNDER LINK

    Featuring: Dr Tristan Barber (BHIVA), Matthew Hodson, Gus Cairns, Diego Agurto Beroiza, Silvia Petretti. Plus on-site interviews with Simon Collins, Kene Esom, Joan Stephen, Derrick Powell, Vincent LeClerc, Eliane Becks Nininahazwe, Luca Stevenson and Sophie Strachan.

    The cuts are real, and they're killing people. On the opening day of AIDS 2026, Dan Hall and dan glass ask conference delegates what happens when the money that built forty years of progress simply stops arriving.

    Dr Tristan Barber of BHIVA tops and tails the episode with the clinical reality of clinics shutting their doors.

    Archive testimony comes from Matthew Hodson, writer, activist and former executive director of NAM aidsmap, on why the death toll is rising again; Gus Cairns, HIV journalist and educator diagnosed in 1985, on the collapse of US assistance to Africa; Diego Agurto Beroiza, Chilean theatre maker and activist, on PrEP funding disappearing in Argentina; and Silvia Petretti, chief executive of Positively UK, on grief for those already lost and anger at those still to come.

    Links

    • BHIVA
    • HIV i-Base
    • AIDS 2026, the 26th International AIDS Conference
    • UNAIDS, Overcoming Disruption, Transforming the AIDS Response (2025 World AIDS Day report)
    • UNAIDS, 2025 Global AIDS Update, AIDS, Crisis and the Power to Transform

    Extra Special Thanks Anonymous, Soleta Rogan

    Thanks Adam Price, Alix Fox, Apostolos James Vogiatzis, Bryn Gay, Careen Hertzog, Emma20Cole, Garry Brough, Moray Laing, Peter Staley, Philippe Cahill, Ross Fletcher, Sarah Schulman, Simon Collins, Siobhán Allison, Tom McKitterick

    #AIDS2026 #RethinkRebuildRise



    This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

    Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp
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    31 min