BRITAIN: A British man whose immune system appears to have been able to beat the HIV virus was facing pressure yesterday to submit to further vital medical tests.
Health experts, Aids campaigners and gay rights activists urged Andrew Stimpson to come forward following claims that he has been able to rid his body of the virus after taking little more than vitamins.
Activists say that if the claims are true, the phenomenon could potentially bring countless benefits to millions of people infected with HIV. There are more than 53,000 in the UK alone.
Mr Stimpson (25) twice tested positive at the Victoria Clinic for Sexual Health in west London in August 2002. A test 14 months later appeared to be negative.
However, the health trust concerned, Chelsea and Westminster, yesterday said Mr Stimpson had so far "declined" to undergo further tests. It is understood that he was first asked to do so immediately after last year's negative result.
A spokeswoman said: "I can confirm that he has a positive and a negative test. I can't confirm that he's shaken it off, that he's been cured. We urge him, for the sake of himself and the HIV community, to come in and get tested.
Though Mr Stimpson insists he will "do anything I can", associates said yesterday that he had gone away to rest and escape the media spotlight.
Campaigners are annoyed that having not yet undergone the vital tests, Mr Stimpson nevertheless signed contracts with the News of the World and the Mail on Sunday newspapers, both of which published his claims yesterday.
They also sounded a note of caution, saying that disclosures in his case arose not from medical research or peer review but from legal correspondence relating to an action Mr Stimpson was pursuing against the health trust.
He had feared the positive results might have been wrong and had sought compensation. The trust's contention that both sets of blood tests were accurate emerged as it tried to defend itself from litigation.
Mr Stimpson, who works in a sandwich bar and lives in London with his partner, who is HIV positive, said: "There are 34.9 million people with HIV globally and I am just one person who managed to control it, to survive from it and to get rid of it from my body. For me that is unbelievable - it is a miracle. I think I'm one of the luckiest people alive.
"I was just taking daily supplements to keep myself as healthy as possible so as not to get full-blown Aids."
But Annabel Kanabus, director of the Aids charity Avert, said he must now match words with deeds.
"He must come forward. Organisations such as ours will be inundated this week. There is enough confusion surrounding the issue of HIV. We don't need any more." She said the sequence of events was troubling.
Peter Tatchell, of the campaign group Outrage, said Mr Stimpson must "co-operate with the medical authorities for the greater benefit of everyone who has HIV".