NAZ Leads Global Push for Zero HIV Stigma Day with the release of a moving film
Zero HIV Stigma Day returns on 21 July 2025 with a renewed global call to end one of the most damaging barriers to ending the HIV epidemic: stigma. The grassroots movement, launched by UK-based sexual health charity NAZ, is now recognised globally as the only campaign focused solely on dismantling HIV stigma across healthcare, policy, and society at large. This year’s campaign is centred on the theme “Awareness to Action: The Path to 2030,” reminding the world that stigma must be addressed if we are to meet the UN target of ending AIDS as a public health threat by the end of the decade.
To mark the 2025 campaign, NAZ has released a powerful new short film featuring real people living with HIV speaking openly to their friends and family. In intimate, unscripted conversations, they explore how a diagnosis affects not only their lives, but the lives of those closest to them. The film is a deeply human portrayal of truth, fear, resilience, and love, and will be available on YouTube on 21 July.
Despite decades of progress in treatment and prevention, stigma continues to kill.
Almost half of the people (45.1%) in the last Positive Voices survey reported feeling ashamed of their HIV status
84.4 million people have acquired HIV and more than 42 million have died from AIDS-related illnesses.
52.9% of people of Black African ethnicity were diagnosed at a late stage of HIV infection and they were the only group to see an increase in late diagnoses, where the risk of death within a year of diagnosis was ten times higher.
Globally, stigma continues to restrict access to healthcare, education, and rights.
Only 23% of countries have anti-discrimination protections covering sexual orientation, gender identity and HIV status. Meanwhile, 91 countries (114 jurisdictions) still have HIV-specific criminal laws.
In England, youth under 25 face the highest rates of STIs and unplanned pregnancy, yet 1 in 3 say they did not learn how to access local sexual health services.
These statistics reveal a global health crisis that is as much about stigma, lack of education and inequality as it is about the virus itself. Zero HIV Stigma Day is a response to this reality.
“There has never been a more urgent moment to talk honestly about HIV,” says Parminder Sekhon, CEO of NAZ. “This film is about connection, how stigma isolates, how silence damages, and how honesty can heal. We can end this epidemic, but only if we dismantle the shame that still surrounds HIV. Zero HIV Stigma Day exists to remind the world that people living with HIV deserve not pity or fear, but equality, dignity and joy.”
The 2025 campaign focuses on three core areas:
Scaling best practices to reduce stigma
Forming cross-sectoral partnerships to challenge entrenched bias
Increasing political and donor engagement to ensure stigma reduction is a global priority
Since launching in 2023, the campaign has reached over one million people, with global support from UNAIDS, the CDC, the U.S. Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS, the Elton John AIDS Foundation, and the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation. In 2024, governments and workplaces across the UK and the US formally recognised the day with educational events and public commitments to address stigma.
