This is a book of quintessential lived experiences. What we have been doing to date is not working. The statistics tell the story, and now COVID is putting HIV and AIDS on the back burner. As it stands, 28.2 million people were accessing antiretroviral therapy as of the 30th June 2021. Roughly 30 to 45 million people globally were living with HIV in 2020 and 1.5 million people became newly infected with HIV in 2020. Over 36.3 million people have died from AIDS and AIDS related illnesses since the start of the epidemic compared to 6.3 million deaths from Coronavirus as of May 2022. Coronavirus has a vaccine. COVID will never be the killer pandemic that HIV is, and continues to be.
We need a new way to combat the stigma. Whatever we are doing is not working. Maybe people need to connect to real people and real stories. All these are real and versatile stories of people living with HIV. From life, love, death, and all things in-between. Each story will touch your heart. We hope these stories will help frontline workers working within HIV/AIDS ridden communities to get a better understanding of what the trauma of being HIV positive entails to the person who gets the diagnosis. This book is the start to creating a movement that really helps to end the stigma. Let us end transmissions by 2030. It is devastating that there are still children born HIV positive and it's entirely due to the lack of knowledge. Young people are saying they would never date a person who is HIV positive. What does that say to a young person born with the HIV virus? You are not worthy of love?
May this book help us to normalize HIV as a chronic disease and not one in which the stigma is creating a “them and us” scenario.
We hope as you read this book, it will educate, inform and transform your mindset.
