Transcript

I'm Shannon. I'm 40 years old and I'm originally from Seattle but now I live in Washington DC.

I'm currently the director of HIV/AIDS for Washington D.C. and I've been in this job for about a year.

Essentially the mayor hired me because our Mayor Fenty made HIV his number one public health priority and I said: yeah I want to be a part of that response.

And we have not just an epicenter we are the modern epidemic.

We have the highest AIDS rates in the country. We do have increasing rates... increasing numbers of women living with HIV/AIDS in the District.

If you are HIV-positive there are a lot of services out there in D.C., and there are a lot of people who would like to support you.

We want everyone to think of getting HIV tested in D.C. as part of your routine regular health so just like you would go to the doctor to get your blood pressure checked and have your pap smear, and do all these things that a lot of women do routinely, you should be offered a regular HIV test every time that happens too.

Step up and ask for it by asking your doctor, or asking your nurse: you know what are you testing me for HIV?

Why didn't you offer me an HIV test?

You can help not only make sure you get the services that you need but also change what gets offered to everyone.

In terms of rutinizing HIV, HIV testing in medical care settings, providers are the problem. So my message to healthcare professionals is: It's a new day. You know, HIV is the number one cause of premature death in Washington dc and as a healthcare provider it's your job, it's your job to make sure you're offering the person who walks through your door the option to make sure they're not one of those statistics.

We sort of perpetuate this myth cause its comfortable that somehow HIV has gone away that it's under control and I think using personal stories and making them widely available like through the living quilt to send the message you know what it hasn't gone away, but it can go away if we all work together.