Accurate reporting about HIV matters. Outdated language, misleading headlines and unnecessary references to transmission risk can reinforce stigma and cause real harm to people living with HIV.
Journalists, editors and other media professionals are encouraged to use current, evidence-based language and to remember that people receiving effective HIV treatment who have an undetectable viral load do not transmit HIV through sex: Undetectable = Untransmittable (U=U).
Reporting HIV: How to Get It Right
The National AIDS Trust’s updated guide offers practical advice for journalists on reporting HIV fairly, accurately and without stigma. Published in July 2024, it updates and supplements the organisation’s earlier 2010 reporting guidelines.
HIV Ireland Media Reporting Guidelines
HIV Ireland launched its own media-reporting guidelines in 2021, developed for the Irish context. Its website continues to refer to the resource, although the guidelines themselves do not currently appear to be available at the linked location.
Availability note: I have retained this reference because the guidelines remain an important Irish resource. I hope the document will become available again.
Lived experience and media enquiries
HIVBlogger.ie has documented life with HIV since 2009, alongside writing about kidney failure, dialysis, autism, accessibility, healthcare and stigma.
I may be available to contribute lived-experience perspectives, background information or comment on relevant stories.
Last reviewed: July 2026