AVERT is an international AIDS

AIDS

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...

 charity

Charitable organization

A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization . It differs from other types of NPOs in that it centers on philanthropic goals A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization (NPO). It differs from other types of NPOs in that it centers on philanthropic goals A...

 based in Horsham

Horsham

Horsham is a market town with a population of 55,657 on the upper reaches of the River Arun in the centre of the Weald, West Sussex, in the historic County of Sussex, England. The town is south south-west of London, north-west of Brighton and north-east of the county town of Chichester...

, South East England

South East England

South East England is one of the nine official regions of England, designated in 1994 and adopted for statistical purposes in 1999. It consists of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, East Sussex, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, Surrey and West Sussex...

, United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

.

Early work

AVERT was founded in 1986 by Peter Kanabus and his wife Annabel, daughter of former Sainsbury's chairman Robert Sainsbury

Robert Sainsbury

Sir Robert Sainsbury , was the son of John Benjamin Sainsbury , and along with his wife Lisa began the collection of modern and tribal art housed at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich.-Early and family life:Robert Sainsbury was educated at Haileybury College and Pembroke...

. In its first fifteen years the charity focused on producing educational publications and funding HIV-related educational, social and medical research.

A number of AVERT's publications, such as the AIDS: Working With Young People (1993) teaching pack were based on substantial educational research. In addition many thousands of AVERT's booklets were distributed in the UK each year, covering such topics as sex education

Sex education

Sex education refers to formal programs of instruction on a wide range of issues relating to human sexuality, including human sexual anatomy, sexual reproduction, sexual intercourse, reproductive health, emotional relations, reproductive rights and responsibilities, abstinence, contraception, and...

, sexuality

Sexual orientation

Sexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to the opposite sex, the same sex, both, or neither, and the genders that accompany them. By the convention of organized researchers, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality,...

 and HIV

HIV

Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...

.

Medical research funded by AVERT included the first ever study of the effect of pregnancy on the progression of HIV disease, and social research included studies of HIV and drug use

Recreational drug use

Recreational drug use is the use of a drug, usually psychoactive, with the intention of creating or enhancing recreational experience. Such use is controversial, however, often being considered to be also drug abuse, and it is often illegal...

 in UK prison

Prison

A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...

s.

In 2001 the charity decided to cease funding research and producing printed publications, and instead to concentrate on its educational website and work outside the UK in countries with a particularly high or rapidly increasing rate of HIV infection and AIDS.

Avert.org

The charity's educational website avert.org, established in 1995, claims to be the world's most popular AIDS website, receiving a reported two million page view

Page view

A page view or page impression is a request to load a single HTML file of an Internet site. On the World Wide Web a 'page' request would result from a web surfer clicking on a link on another 'page' pointing to the 'page' in question. This should be contrasted with a hit, which refers to a...

s per month. In 2005 the site won the British Medical Association

British Medical Association

The British Medical Association is the professional association and registered trade union for doctors in the United Kingdom. The association does not regulate or certify doctors, a responsibility which lies with the General Medical Council. The association’s headquarters are located in BMA House,...

's Patient Information Award for Websites.

Overseas projects

AVERT funds a range of projects in developing countries, predominantly in sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa as a geographical term refers to the area of the African continent which lies south of the Sahara. A political definition of Sub-Saharan Africa, instead, covers all African countries which are fully or partially located south of the Sahara...

, where the AIDS epidemic is most severe. Organisations given money include Sangram

Sangram

Sampada Gramin Mahila Sanstha is a voluntary organization that works at the grassroots level with activists, volunteers and paid workers. It is slowly gaining importance as a practical training ground for other NGO’s and GO’s interested in working on HIV/AIDS in a rural context...

 in southwest India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, and Tholulwazi Uzivikele in KwaZulu Natal.

The charity's work made headlines in 2008 when South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

n doctor Colin Pfaff was suspended from his post for supplying HIV positive, pregnant women with the antiretroviral drug AZT

Zidovudine

Zidovudine or azidothymidine is a nucleoside analog reverse-transcriptase inhibitor , a type of antiretroviral drug used for the treatment of HIV/AIDS. It is an analog of thymidine....

, which had been paid for by AVERT. At the time the South African government had not approved the use of AZT to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV, even though it was recommended by the World Health Organisation and was widely used in other developing countries. Rural doctors, scientists, AIDS activists and organisations rallied in support of Pfaff, and the charges were subsequently dropped.