April 20, 2022
Dear partners of National HIV Testing Day:
June 27th Every year we celebrate National HIV Testing Day (NHTD), a day to highlight and encourage HIV testing. This year, we observe NHTD as the COVID-19 and HIV outbreaks continue to impact our communities, the nation, public health departments, and healthcare facilities. As NHTD approaches, we want to recognize partners for their essential services that make HIV testing simple, accessible, affordable and routine.
The NHTD theme for 2022 is “HIV testing is self-care.» The World Health Organization defines self-care as “the capacity of individuals, families and communities to promote health, prevent disease, maintain health and cope with illness and disability with or without support from a health care provider.” The theme of self-care has been particularly important during the COVID-19 pandemic, as the need for individual and community actions to protect and promote physical and mental health has proven crucial. HIV testing is an act of self-careand knowing one’s status is the gateway to engaging in prevention or treatment services that enable individuals, regardless of their status, to live long and healthy lives.
Using this theme, partners can add a slogan to customize as they wish. For example:
- HIV testing is self-care: Testing is essential to ending the HIV epidemic.
- HIV testing means taking care of yourself: Getting tested means taking care of yourself.
- HIV testing is about taking care of yourself: take care of yourself and others too!
- HIV testing is about taking care of yourself: choose a test and choose to take care of yourself.
The NHTD message will emphasize that HIV testing can be free, easy, fast and confidential. HIV self-tests can be done when and where the individual wants. Posts will also promote locators that allow individuals to search by zip code for testing services or self-test kits provided by local, state and national programs, including locators hosted by hiv.gov And cdc.gov. THE National HIV/AIDS Strategy for the United States 2022-2025Objective 1.2: To increase knowledge of HIV status aligns with the NHTD as an opportunity for federal agencies to coordinate a consistent messaging campaign to the public and partners on the importance, convenience, and access to HIV testing in the United States.
As part of the NHTD, please use the hashtag #HIVTestingDay on your social media and let your audience know that there are many options for getting tested for HIV. Testing, including self-testing, is the first step in the care or prevention journey, regardless of test result, and a critical tool in helping us end the HIV epidemic in the United States. We appreciate everything you do to help us achieve this goal.
Thank you for your support of this year’s National HIV Testing Day!
/Harold J. Phillips/
Harold J. Phillips, MRP
Director
Office of National AIDS Policy
The White House
/Jonathan Mermin/
Jonathan H. Mermin, MD, MPH
RADM and Assistant Surgeon General, USPHS
Director
National Center for Prevention of HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STDs and Tuberculosis
Centers for Disaster Control and Prevention
Stay connected: @DrMerminCDC & Connections
/Demeter Daskalakis/
Demeter C. Daskalakis, MD, MPH
Director,
HIV Prevention Division
National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and Tuberculosis Prevention Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
www.cdc.gov/hiv
