Chat: Living long with HIV

Self-help activist and family mum Michèle Meyer is chatting today on the topic of "Long-term survival!".

Michèle Meyer learnt of her HIV infection in 1994 and expected to die early. Tonight, the happy family mum and self-help activist invites you to a chat. Topic: "Long-term survival!"

The first newspaper report about the disease that would later be called AIDS appeared in the New York Times in 1981 - almost 30 years ago. Some people who found out about their HIV infection in the 1980s are still alive today - thanks to highly effective HIV treatments. Since the mid-90s, they have made it possible to live with the virus for a long time.

How do you look to the future when you have already finished with life? How do you deal with the long-term side effects of medication? How do you deal with friends surviving? These are the kinds of questions that will be addressed in tonight's chat on the topic of "Long-term survival!" with activist Michèle Meyer, President of the Swiss self-help organisation LHIVE.

Michèle and family — Michèle Meyer with Mic, Mona and Sofia

Michèle herself has known about her infection since 1994. She suffered a miscarriage at the time and was diagnosed shortly afterwards. "At the time, I thought I would grow old with a burning desire to have children, but don't ask me how old!" she says. "There were no drugs back then." Today, she lives in a small town near Basel with her HIV-negative husband and two daughters who were also born negative.

(howi)