June 5th — HIV Long-Term Survivor’s Day

June 5this the annual National HIV Long-Term Survivor’s Day, honoring the long-term survivors of HIV and to raise awareness of their current needs, issues, and journeys in navigating life with the burden of HIV. This year’s theme is “Empowered to Thrive,” emphasizing that long term survivors of HIV need not sacrifice quality of life, nor feel ashamed by the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS.

This movement to celebrate HIV/AIDS survivors is spearheaded by a grassroots movement called Let’s Kick ASS — AIDS Survivor Syndrome led by Tez Anderson. He is a long-term HIV survivor and originally given a prognosis of less than two years to live in 1986. This year, he turns sixty and is currently an activist, a writer, a motivational speaker, and is happily married to his partner.

While public health efforts have made incredible strides in reducing the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS in recent years, the stigma and a connotation of fatality still lingers — permeating the perceptions of even the most progressive medical and public health professionals. Surviving three decades past his prognosis, Tez Anderson represents many other long-term HIV survivors who lead normal lives after contracting HIV/AIDS. Not only that, he represents hope for many individuals living with HIV/AIDS — he is living, breathing evidence that living with HIV/AIDS is just one facet of his incredibly fulfilling life — an example that HIV/AIDS survivors can look to as a possibility of a full life.

While treating the biological symptoms and the etiology of HIV/AIDS are extremely important, it is just as important to tackle the social symptoms of HIV/AIDS. People infected with HIV/AIDS should be empowered to live a full life, and should not be fettered by the stigmatization of the illness. June 5th– the National HIV Long-Term Survivor’s Day — is one of many of today’s current public health efforts to celebrating the stories of people like Tez Anderson who did not let his illness control his pursuit of a happy marriage and a meaningful career.

Follow Tez Anderson’s journey and activism on his personal Twitter, his grassroots movement Let’s Kick ASS-AIDS Survivor Syndrome, and his personal website.