HIV (and HIV testing) is a big deal

I'm not sure that the marketing in South Africa has been very effective. I would suggest a strategy similar to something I saw in the Uk (for road safety). It showed a woman driving in her car, crashed, and her son, sitting behind her, smashed his head against the back of hers, killing them both. The point is, if you risk death, the way to spread the message is in a serious (and shocking) a manner as you possibly can. Let's face it - by not responding to the message you risk killing other people. Is it possible to overexaggerate the message?

And you do so by showing reality at its grittiest. Another campaign could show people in the final stages of AIDS - skeletal, gaunt, suffering. That's the consequence of infection, of infecting, and not knowing.

clipped from www.sowetan.co.za DJ Sbu’s late fiancée Lehlohonolo Damoyi committed suicide after discovering that she was HIV-positive, an investigation by Sowetan has revealed. Damoyi committed suicide in July 2005 by hanging herself in a room at Palazzo Hotel in Fourways, Johannesburg. She was 26. Sources close to investigations into her death said she took an overdose of ARV tablets before she committed suicide. She had also cut her wrists. Sowetan has established that Damoyi became depressed after learning of her HIV status.