A recent statement attributed to Dr Clementine Odoi, the Head of the University of Ghana Medical School, has generated considerable attention.
In the widely circulated graphic, she is quoted as saying: “Because of antiretroviral drugs, people infected with HIV look healthier and even more beautiful.
Don’t trust anybody.”
Whether the full remarks contained additional context or nuance, the message as presented publicly deserves serious reflection.
I am not trying to devalue the conversation on risk but we must know that how we communicate risk matters just as much as the information we communicate.
For decades, HIV has carried a burden beyond the virus itself: stigma.
People living with HIV have been feared, blamed, isolated and sometimes treated as though their diagnosis says something about their morality or character.
Although enormous medical progress has been made, our communication about HIV has not always progressed at the same pace.
The Ghana AIDS Commission currently estimates that more than 337,000 people are living with HIV in Ghana, with nearly 14,000 new infections estimated in 2025.
These numbers certainly demand serious public health attention.
While we do that, seriousness should not be confused with fear.
A statement such as “don’t trust anybody” may be intended to encourage people to protect themselves.
Yet, it can easily communicate something else: that people living with HIV may appear healthy and therefore should be regarded with suspicion.
That is where we should be careful.
Antiretroviral therapy
One of the most important medical achievements in the global response to HIV is antiretroviral therapy.
These medications do not merely make someone with HIV look healthy.
They allow people living with HIV to be healthy, live productive lives and when treatment successfully suppresses the virus, prevent sexual transmission.
This is the science behind U=U: Undetectable = Untransmittable.
The evidence is clear.
According to the United States Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, a person living with HIV who takes treatment and maintains an undetectable viral load has zero risk of sexually transmitting HIV to a partner.
That is an extraordinary public health achievement.
Yet, how often do we hear this part of the HIV story?
We frequently hear warnings about HIV.
We hear about prevalence, new infections, sexual behaviour and the importance of protection.
All of these conversations have a place.
But comparatively little public communication celebrates what treatment has made possible.
There are thousands of people living with HIV who take their medication faithfully, attend medical appointments, monitor their viral load and maintain viral suppression.
They are not pretending to be healthy.
Their health is the result of one of modern medicine’s greatest successes.
Describing their healthy appearance as something the public should not be “deceived” by risks turning treatment success into a source of suspicion.
Empowerment
The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) current HIV guidance emphasises not only testing and treatment but also choice, equity and removing barriers to care.
That approach matters in Ghana.
We should be creating an environment where someone can walk into a clinic for an HIV test without wondering whether society will condemn them if the result is positive.
We should be creating an environment where someone diagnosed with HIV understands that treatment can allow them to live a long, healthy, and fulfilling life.
We should be teaching young people that HIV prevention involves responsibility, not paranoia.
And we should be communicating U=U loudly enough that the Ghanaian public understands what viral suppression means.
If Ghana intends to reduce new HIV infections, our messaging must become part of the intervention itself because we cannot fight HIV, while inadvertently fighting people living with HIV or encouraging testing while making a positive diagnosis socially terrifying.
And we should not allow the success of antiretroviral therapy to become evidence that people living with HIV are somehow being deceptive because they look healthy.
They look healthy because treatment works.
The writer is a Doctoral Candidate/
Health Communication Researcher,
University of Kentucky.
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