RALEIGH, N.C. — June 27 is National HIV Testing Day, and approximately 1.2 million people in the United States are living with HIV and about 13% of them don’t know it, according to HIV.gov. 

What You Need To Know

  •  June 27 is National HIV Testing Day

  •  Local health departments, LGBTQ centers and some stores are offering testing

  •  The CDC recommends everyone between the ages of 13 and 64 gets tested for HIV at least once as part of routine health care

  • For people with certain risk factors, CDC recommends getting tested at least once a year

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends everyone between the ages of 13 and 64 gets tested for HIV at least once as part of routine care. North Carolinian, Rita McDaniel said she feels that everyone should get tested.

“It’s just like everything else that when you go to the doctors, that you should be tested for. So that you’ll know,” McDaniel said. “A lot of people don’t want to know if they have HIV, and that’s sad because it’s been presented over the years with such stigma, people have shied away from being tested.”

McDaniel has been living with HIV for 30 years. It wasn’t until she got tested that she knew she had it. 

“HIV is sort of that silent killer. For years, you may been infected with HIV but never have any symptoms,” she said.

She explains that getting tested changed her life and possibly saved it as well. 

“I have five small kids at the time, I was a single mom, I thought it was a death sentence. And this was back in the '90s, so there was not much information on HIV,” McDaniel said. “Probably at the rate that I was going during that time, if I could have not known, I could have passed it on to my children in some indirect way, I could’ve become terminally ill.”

McDaniel started working with different organizations to educate herself about HIV, as well as how to protect others. 

One of those advocacy groups is the North Carolina Aids Action Network, and she is an outreach coordinator for the organization.

According to Aids Vu, an interactive mapping tool, in 2020, there were over 33,560 people living with HIV in North Carolina. During that year, over 1,000 people were also newly diagnosed in the state. Because of data like this and her own story, McDaniel is on a mission to help others like her.

“I feel like it’s my goal not to play super woman and save the world, but just to get women informed and get them tested, so that they will never have to experience the things that I’ve had to experience,” McDaniel said. “I’ve been stigmatized, I’ve been discriminated against in businesses because of my HIV status, so it’s so very important for woman of color to be tested. So, this is why I do what I do.”

You can get tested for HIV at local health departments and local LGBTQ centers.