PrEP for Migrants Project – New HIV Prevention Partnership Project between CNWL and Aymara Social Enterprise

This month saw the launch of a new ‘PrEP for Migrants’ project in North Central London, which CNWL has sub-contracted to Aymara Social Enterprise, as part of its wider NCL PrEP Programme. At the population level, migrancy status is a risk factor for HIV, with 46% of people newly diagnosed with HIV in 2023 being born outside the UK (6% were born in Latin America, 9% in Asia and 31% in Africa). Reasons include relatively higher prevalence of HIV in some communities and lower levels of engagement with services, resulting in lower levels of testing and take-up of HIV prevention methods such as PrEP (a medication taken by people who are HIV-negative that protects them if they come into contact with the virus). It is available free from NHS sexual health clinics and can be accessed in Central and North London by booking an appointment online here.

Aymara specialises in addressing health inequalities among racially minoritized communities, especially non-Anglophone migrants. The model Aymara has developed looks at other issues that cause people to not always put their health first such as housing, employment, and immigration status. As part of the PrEP for Migrants project they will provide health promotion outreach, point-of-care HIV testing, case work support, and PrEP Peer Champion workshops to migrant communities across the NCL boroughs of Camden, Islington, Haringey and Barnet.

The NCL PrEP Programme was established in 2022 to support delivery of HIV PrEP prevention as a new routine service available at NHS sexual health clinics. The Programme’s aim is to increase awareness and uptake of PrEP across NCL, with a particular focus on under-served communities. Projects have included the co-designed ‘Be PrEPared’ multimedia campaign focused on gay-bi-and-other-men-who-have-sex-with-men (GBMSM), a suite of activities researching and addressing the HIV prevention needs of Black African communities, and development of a clinical model to initiate PrEP in community settings. The NCL PrEP Programme will run until June 2025.

Dominic Reilly, NCL PrEP Programme Manager, said, “We are really pleased to be working with Aymara on this highly targeted work, which addresses a longstanding and worsening health inequity around HIV prevention for heterosexual migrants. Aymara’s model for PrEP promotion has been demonstrated to effectively engage Latin American communities in Lambeth and Southwark, and we look forward to replicating that success in NCL”.