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News from Canada – Aids groups remove ‘Aids’ from their names

1 February 2011

Three decades after Aids was identified, some Canadian HIV/Aids organisations are considering a dramatic transformation: Removing the word ‘Aids’ from their names.

The organisations are seeking the change to reflect that many of their clients are living with HIV, not Aids.

“Aids still conjures up those scary images of dying alone in a hospital bed or where you’re isolated,” says Ian Nelson reception services coordinator for the BC Persons with Aids Society (BCPWA). “And those images are really, in my mind, gone.”

“When Aids first came onto the scene it WAS ‘Aids’,” executive director of Aids Vancouver Brian Chittock said. “People were contracting various diseases, and they were being diagnosed with a syndrome. And in response to that, almost all the Aids service organizations back in the early 1980s were being called ‘Aids whatever.’”

Now many people are living for decades with HIV without developing Aids.

Aids Vancouver hasn’t formally considered a name change. “For me the biggest issue is: ‘How can we de-stigmatize HIV and Aids so that people are not afraid to be associated with us?’” Chittock said.

“Twenty-five years ago, ‘Aids’ was very fitting to have in our name, and we were persons living with Aids,” Nelson says. “HIV and Aids is such a continuum these days that with the new medication now many people probably will not experience Aids. And so in that context somebody that’s newly diagnosed with HIV really would probably wonder why they want to join an Aids organisation. That would almost be giving up the fight.”

What about South African Aids groups, should they consider a similar approach? Read the full article at Xtra! and share your views in our Comments section below. More news headlines can be found in our News Archive.