“Undetectable = Untransmittable (U=U) is a human rights issue, Dr Carrie Foote told the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2019) in Seattle last week. “All people living with HIV have a right to accurate information about their social, sexual and reproductive health,” she said. Foote has been living with HIV since 1988, is one of the founding members of the U=U campaign and is an Associate Professor of Sociology in the School of Liberal Arts at Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis.
“Stigma is killing us,” she added. “HIV stigma is a public health emergency and U=U is an immediate and effective response to begin to dismantle stigma.”
She told a CROI symposium that the U=U campaign was launched by Bruce Richman of the Prevention Access Campaign in 2016 and reflects the finding that HIV-positive individuals on successful treatment cannot infect their sexual partners.”
