5 December, 2022 - “Change the name, end the stigma” is the core message of the global campaign of non-government organization Initiative Youth Against AIDS with creative agency Serviceplan Suisse. On the occasion of World AIDS Day, an open letter to the Director-General of the World Health Organization, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, was published, calling on him to officially rename HIV.
The letter describes HIV as an “Epidemic of the Mind,” and it is caused and perpetuated primarily by non-medical factors. The report that supports this, prepared by Youth Against AIDS in collaboration with LMU Munich and supported by the Boston Consulting Group, explored the question of why so many young people are still becoming infected with HIV. It found that it is not medical-therapeutic obstacles, but those of an intellectual nature, that prevent the epidemic from being fought. HIV is an “Epidemic of the Mind.”
