Dear National HIV Testing Day Partners,

National HIV Testing Day (NHTD) is observed each year on June 27 to highlight the importance of HIV testing. This year, we’re going beyond the test to emphasize the steps everyone can take once they know their HIV status. The NHTD theme for 2023 is “Take the Test & Take the Next Step.” This theme emphasizes that knowing your HIV status helps you choose options to stay healthy.

HIV testing, including self-testing, is the pathway to engaging people in care to keep them healthy, regardless of their test result. People who receive a negative test result can take advantage of HIV prevention tools such as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), condoms, and other sexual health services such as vaccines and testing for sexually transmitted infections. People who receive a positive test result can rapidly start HIV treatment (antiretroviral therapy, or ART) to stay healthy.

To support this year’s theme, partners may want to add the following taglines or copy:

• Take the Test & Take the Next Step: No matter how you test, no matter your test results, take the next step.
• Take the Test & Take the Next Step: Check your status and know. Take steps to be good to go.
• Take the Test & Take the Next Step: Testing - critical to ending the HIV epidemic in the U.S.!

The National HIV/AIDS Strategy and the Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S. Initiative emphasize diagnosing individuals as soon as possible and ensuring the availability of multiple HIV testing modalities to best meet the needs of populations with increased risk of transmission due to a wide range of social, economic, and demographic factors (such as stigma, discrimination, etc.).

As part of NHTD, please use the hashtag #HIVTestingDay on your social media channels and communicate to your audiences that there are many options for getting tested for HIV. Testing, including self-testing, regardless of the test result, is the first step to care or prevention. It is a critical tool to help us end the HIV epidemic in the United States. We appreciate everything you contribute to help us achieve this goal. 

Thank you for supporting this year’s National HIV Testing Day! 

/Harold J. Phillips/

Harold J. Phillips, MRP
Director
Office of National AIDS Policy
The White House

 /Jonathan Mermin/

Jonathan H. Mermin, MD, MPH
RADM and Assistant Surgeon General, USPHS
Director
National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Stay connected: @DrMerminCDCExit Disclaimer & Connections

/Kayla Quimbley/ -
Kayla Quimbley
National Youth HIV and AIDS Awareness Day Ambassador, Advocates for Youth
Member, Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA)