Prince Harry wants to follow in the footsteps of his mother, Princess Diana, and support the cause of people living with HIV. Along with rugby player Gareth Thomas, who revealed in 2019 that they had the disease, the two came out in support of the UK’s 2022 National HIV Testing Week.
During a chat on Tackle HIV, the player-created campaign, the Duke of Sussex spoke about continuing to advocate for HIV awareness. Harry also noted that at the height of the AIDS epidemic, commercials sought to “polarize” or even talk about people living with HIV.
Princess Diana set up the UK’s first HIV/AIDS unit 35 years ago at Middlesex Hospital in London, a place that serves patients infected with the virus exclusively. “What my mother did, and what a lot of people did at the time, was tear down that wall. He remembers kicking it, open the door and say ‘No.’”
When people suffer, we need to know more. If there’s a bigger stigma around it, then we really need to talk about it more,” Harry said. “It made people feel a little uncomfortable to start taking action. But stigma thrives on silence. We know that.
“What my mom started all those years ago was building empathy and understanding…as well as curiosity, which I think was really powerful.”
The player who accompanied Harry to the event made it his mission to educate people about HIV and correct myths about the disease in order to break the stigma surrounding the virus. We need to eliminate the stigma and misunderstanding around it. It wouldn’t be scary if you understood what it means to live with HIV in 2022, Thomas said.
Harry noted that people’s ignorance of HIV prevents them from getting tests to diagnose the disease, and said he “hopes that getting tested will help others feel more comfortable discovering their condition.” [positivo ou negativo]”.
