Our World AIDS Day message is celebratory

published on December 1, 2017 by Bob Leahy - Publisher, in Positive Lite

Publisher Bob Leahy says World AIDS Day tributes take many forms, but PositiveLite.com is saying World AIDS Day 2017 is a time to celebrate – and, with the Government of Canada now on board, names 2017 as the year of U=U.

Those charged with writing world AIDS day messages have a surprising array of options. They can honour our fallen – that’s important. Paying tribute to those living with HIV is also a worthy goal. Our messages can be reflective of the past, taking stock of where we are now, or aspirational. Inspirational too. All these topics I’ve addressed in the past.

I’ve never done a celebratory World AIDS Day message before. But then 2017 has been no ordinary year. It has been a year of personal transformations. It has been a year of great news for many of us and a challenge for others. It has been a year when a community movement blossomed. It has been a year where people living with HIV led rather than followed. It has been a year where we talked science a lot – in this case around the risk of transmission – and people got it. It has been a year where people living with HIV became the experts. It has been a year which gave us a tool to finally put a real dent in HIV stigma, to access for treatment, to feel safe again. In import, it has been a year which matched 1996, the year antiretroviral therapies were introduced. It has been the year of Undetectable = Untransmittable, the year of U=U, the year of #uequalsu. Take your pick.

True, the story of U=U began in 2015 or much earlier if you consider the parade of markers which led to it – Canadian hero Dr. Julio Montaner first talking treatment as prevention (TasP) in 2006, the dismissed but since repatriated Swiss statement of 2008, then HPTN 052, then PARTNER, then Opposites Attract – all pages in our history now. And so will be the story of Bruce Richman, the New York City first time AIDS activist (yes, really!) who led U=U both literally and figuratively onto the world stage. 2017 was the year that the campaign took off, here and abroad.

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Treatment as Prevention®

Julio Montaner

BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS

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Our World AIDS Day message is celebratory

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