Top 355 HIV Quotes & Sayings

Explore popular HIV quotes.
Last updated on April 14, 2025.
When a person tests positive for HIV, it is not a test for the virus itself but for antibodies to the virus, and the test is not able to distinguish between HIV antibodies and a multitude of other antibodies. Many conditions can lead to a false positive result, including flu shots, hepatitis, and pregnancy.
Its not even probable, let alone scientifically proven, that HIV causes AIDS. If there is evidence that HIV causes AIDS, there should be scientific documents which either singly or collectively demonstrate that fact, at least with a high probability. There are no such documents.
Just to be clear, if, like Pat Robertson, you somehow missed all the evidence, all the research, the depth and breadth of all the knowledge garnered about HIV and AIDS over the past three decades, you cannot get HIV if you share towels.
The nature of a protective immune response to HIV is still unclear. Because in a very, very unique manner, unlike virtually any other microbe with which we're familiar, the HIV virus has evolved in a way that the immune system finds it very difficult, if not impossible, to deal with the virus.
HIV/AIDS has become much more than a health issue. HIV/AIDS is a development issue, it's a security issue. — © Kofi Annan
HIV/AIDS has become much more than a health issue. HIV/AIDS is a development issue, it's a security issue.
I don't think I have HIV. I don't think that I ever had HIV. I think I had hepatitis. I got rid of the hepatitis, and since then, every single time I have tested for HIV, it has been negative. The original test was a false positive.
To tell you the truth, I'm shocked, as I travel across this country, at how little people know or don't want to know about HIV/AIDS. There are a lot of people who don't know that HIV is one thing and AIDS is another. Those people just think it's one big old alphabet of a disease.
HIV AIDS is a disease with stigma. And we have learned with experience, not just with HIV AIDS but with other diseases, countries for many reasons are sometimes hesitant to admit they have a problem.
We can sharply deflect the curve of HIV incidence.
There are so many different varieties of HIV out there.
HIV/AIDS from converted from a lethal disease into a chronic disease because basic scientists' fundamental research was done that illuminated aspects of that virus and allowed the generation of therapies like antiretroviral therapies. And so now HIV/AIDS is not a lethal disease, it is a chronic disease.
HIV is not a death sentence. It doesn't mean life's over. It means that life's going to be different, but you still get to have those moments that people who don't have HIV experience.
My having HIV has no bearing on my business.
Is neither a cure for AIDS nor a way of preventing infection with HIV.
HIV changed my life, but it doesn't keep me from living.
A lot of people have forgotten the severity of this disease, of HIV. So I think it's important that we just talk about things like this: how we can prevent it, how we can make sure that people are safe, how they can move forward, too, if they do have HIV.
In my senior year of high school, I was working at a dealership washing cars. For some reason, I asked them to give me a shot as a salesman for a shift. What happened was I sold two cars in one day and they offered me the position. After a while I decided I didn't want the job and so I told the manager I'd contracted HIV from having unprotected sex. It was only half true but I'd been feeling sick and somehow convinced myself I was really dying. I remember I sat in my boss' office, the both of us crying. Later than night he calls my dad and says 'I'm sorry your son has HIV.' It was terrible.
Because we are all human beings, we are all HIV-eligible. — © Brande Roderick
Because we are all human beings, we are all HIV-eligible.
From the beginning, the HIV/AIDS pandemic has presented very difficult challenges.
If you look at three diseases, the three major killers, HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, the only disease for which we have really good drugs is HIV. And it's very simple: because there's a market in the United States and Europe.
According to DC's HIV/AIDS office, three percent of the local population has HIV or AIDS... The DC City Council, perhaps on the theory that serving up another glass of wine is the way to help a drunk, is scheduled to vote on December 1 to legalize same sex marriage in America's capital city.
It's pretty impossible to be a South African and not have been personally affected by HIV or AIDS.
We think that if we get tested, that means you have to have HIV. Or we think that just by knowing someone with HIV, we're going to get HIV or because he's gay or she's a lesbian or whatever. This false information has been put out there and it's created this stigma that stops us from going to find out if we're infected. The truth is it doesn't matter who you are, if you're having sex, you need to be getting tested, plain and simple.
Leaders in all spheres who are living with HIV should be encouraged, not coerced, to lead by example and disclose their HIV status.
I just want to recognize, the HIV epidemic was solved by the community, the HIV advocates and activists who stood up when no one was listening and got everyone's attention.
The number of people with HIV receiving Medicare benefits has grown over time, reflecting growth in the size of the of the HIV positive population in the U.S. but also an increased lifespan for people with HIV due to antiretroviral medicines and other treatment advances.
I spent the past week here in India getting a sense of the reality of HIV and AIDS in people's lives. Fathers and mothers are dying, leaving children with no support. Stigma and discrimination is ruining the family lives. There is an urgent need for education, information, and increased awareness of HIV and AIDS. The response needs to be now. We cannot afford to become fatigued.
HIV criminalization is a global trend, but surprisingly Canada has some of the worst HIV laws in the world - they have incarcerated 200 people to date who have not infected anyone, and half of them are black. This is emotional manipulation that began as an anti-immigrant measure and has devolved into an exploitation of sexual anxiety. It's a crisis of meaning.
Some countries have good laws, laws which could stem the tide of HIV. The problem is that these laws are flouted. Because stigma gives unofficial license to treat people living with HIV or those at greatest risk unlike other citizens.
The phenomenon of HIV criminalization is so much more massive than people understand.
HIV/AIDS is the greatest danger we have faced for many, many centuries. HIV/AIDS is worse than a war. It is like a world war. Millions of people are dying from it.
We're [Clinton Foundation] trying to get rapid tests that give you results when you're right there on site at an affordable price. Ninety percent of the HIV-positive people in the world don't know they have the infection. An enormous amount of infections are being perpetrated by people who don't know they themselves are HIV positive.
I don't think that France is responsible for the Vel d'Hiv.
Let's face it, fashion was destroyed by HIV. People would just die like flies in the eighties. Then, my brother died of HIV, so I was shaken by it in a way that you cannot imagine. It has sadly been in my life ever since and affected it for such a long time. It won't let go. To me, it's a fight that's not finished. Of course, there are medicines that help, but half the world has no access to them.
In the States, the HIV transmission from mother to child is almost completely preventable - the only mothers who really do transmit it are the ones who don't come in for care. If a mother in the United States or in Europe or in the UK comes to care and gets her medicines, she will have an HIV negative baby. Most people don't know that.
I think we should put the same weight now on the co-factors as we have on HIV.
If people are encouraged to come out and say they're HIV-positive and they're given their treatments, then obviously, the people who are marginalized - like intravenous drug users, prisoners, people are made to feel less-than - if they're given the support of the government, and they're given the funding, then it's going to help solve the spread of AIDS and HIV in America.
There's so much stigma around HIV/AIDS. It's a challenging issue, and the people that already have been tested and know their status find it very, very hard to disclose their status, to live with that virus, and to even seek out the kind of information they need. This experience of going to South Africa a decade ago really woke me up to the scale of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa, how it was affecting women and their children. I haven't been able to walk away from it.
There are a number of candidate vaccines that are in development for HIV/AIDS.
Drug warriors' staunch opposition to needle exchanges to prevent the spread of HIV in addicts delayed the programs' widespread introduction in most states for years. A federal ban on funding for these programs wasn't lifted until 2009. Contrast this with what happened in the U.K. At the peak of the AIDS epidemic in the mid-1990s, the HIV infection rate in IV drug users in the U.K. was about 1%. In New York City, the American epicenter, that figure was 50%. The British had introduced widespread needle exchange in 1986. That country had no heterosexual AIDS epidemic.
There exist thousands of Americans who have AIDS-defining diseases but are HIV negative. — © Serge Lang
There exist thousands of Americans who have AIDS-defining diseases but are HIV negative.
Of course, screening for HIV did essentially eliminate the transmission of this virus by transfusions.
There are laws that only apply to people with HIV - we're becoming a viral underclass.
In South Africa, where HIV-positive children are often shunned, we have an HIV-positive Muppet to teach children to be friendly with children with HIV. But they use local actors. And it's not always a street. Sometimes it's 'Sesame Plaza,' or 'Sesame Tree.'
HIV's never been proven to cause AIDS. HIV ain't ever killed anybody.
When we can get the incidence of HIV down enough to turn the trajectory of the pandemic, it will assume a momentum of its own in diminishing HIV.
Every minute of every day, a child under 15 is infected with HIV - the overwhelming majority of children under 15 who are HIV-positive get infected through their mothers at birth. Without treatment, half of these children die before they reach their second birthday.
I'm not cured, but the HIV is asleep deep in my body.
When we, hijras, started our activism, we had to tell people, "We exist, we are humans. Please give us nothing but our basic dignity." The biggest misery in the world, I believe, is the feeling of being unloved, and that this community faces a lot. You're not even considered to be human. You're considered transparent. We were ignored until we started organizing, when HIV first became a factor. Even in the HIV world, people could not believe that hijras have sex. And then also we were put in the category of men having sex with men, the gay community.
Laws that treat people living with HIV or those at greatest risk with respect start with the way that we treat them ourselves: as equals. If we are going to stop the spread of HIV in our lifetime, then that is the change we need to spread.
We live in a fear-based world where HIV stigma can prevail.
HIV/AIDS has no boundaries.
Some countries that I go to are still trying to deny that it's happening. In India, 2.1 million people are living with HIV AIDS. India manufactures most of the drugs that are used to cure HIV around the world, which is an amazing, amazing fact that most people don't know.
If the U.S. can transform its domestic market for HIV/AIDS drugs, it will certainly transform the world market and make HIV/AIDS drugs more affordable for everyone, everywhere.
Botswana has an incredible future if it can wrestle the HIV scenario to the ground. — © Colin Salmon
Botswana has an incredible future if it can wrestle the HIV scenario to the ground.
An ex-boyfriend of mine is living with HIV. He has an undetectable viral load so I know first-hand how this can affect people in a serodiscordant couple - which is where one partner is HIV-negative and one is HIV-positive.
Technology has aided in serious advancements so that HIV detection tests now have near-perfect results. And those tests can detect HIV in the blood an average of nine to 11 days post-infection.
PCR made it easier to see that certain people are infected with HIV.
We see new things all the time. We see new retroviruses out there - which is the category that HIV falls into - and we're very, very concerned because this is the part of the world where HIV jumped from chimpanzees to humans.
Eighty percent of Americans with HIV do not know they are infected.
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