HIV Language Guide

Language is powerful

It can affect the way we see other people and the way people view themselves.

While HIV is a long-term, manageable medical condition like many others, it attracts stigma and discrimination like no other.

Words and phrases used about HIV and people living with HIV can carry hugely negative connotations. Describing people living with HIV as 'suffering', for example, reinforces outdated stereotypes and casts the person as a helpless victim - which is stigmatising in itself.

Language has the power to include or exclude

Some of the language used about HIV and about people living with HIV implies blame and sets people living with HIV apart and different - making it about 'them' and not 'us'.

Language can reinforce stigmatising attitudes, or it can help bring about a world in which people living with HIV are no longer the subject of negative attitudes, stereotypes and discrimination.

	Try to avoid		Better to use
	HIV positive person		Person living with HIV Put the person before the diagnosis
	Person infected with HIV		Person living with HIV Avoid use of the words 'infected' or 'infection'
	HIV Virus		HIV Human Immunodeficiency Virus
	Became infected with HIV		Contracted or acquired HIV Avoid use of the word infected
	Catch / caught HIV		Acquire / acquired HIV
	HIV / AIDS		Use either HIV or AIDS HIV and AIDS are not the same thing. HIV is a virus, AIDS is a clinical syndrome
	AIDS		Essentially a historical term standing for 'Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome' - meaning a collection of illnesses which might occur as a result of a severely weakened immune system. As more and more people have access to effective HIV medication which k
	AIDS test		HIV test AIDS is a clinical syndrome and therefore there is no 'test' for it
	Victim / sufferer		Person living with HIV Words like 'victim' or 'sufferer' can have extremely negative connotations
	Disclose / disclosure		Tell, talk about, share The word 'disclose' has negative and secretive connotations which can magnify feelings of shame and self-stigma
	Clean - as in 'are you clean?'		Do you know your HIV status? Using the word 'clean' can be highly offensive and implies that people living with HIV are 'dirty'
	Comply / compliant with HIV medication		Adhere / adherence to HIV medication 'Comply' implies following instructions. 'Adhere' recognises active engagement in care
	Serodiscordant couple		Mixed status couple A relationship where one person is living with HIV and the other is not
	Mother to baby transmission of HIV		'Vertical' or 'perinatal' transmission of HIV 'Mother to baby' implies blame
	Eradicating HIV by 2030		Ending new transmissions of HIV There will be many people still living with HIV when there are no new transmissions
	Number of HIV infections		Number of HIV acquisitions or number of people diagnosed with HIV
	Zero new infections		Zero new transmissions of HIV Avoid using the word 'infection'

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