Global Lessons, Global Actions: Jade Elektra

Long before the U=U campaign got underway in 2016, Jade Elektra knew that if you’re a person living with HIV with an undetectable viral load, you cannot pass the virus onto your sexual partners.
“You know, I'm no angel. So me and a couple of my partners - you know, things happen or whatever in the heat of the moment - and most of my partners in the past were not HIV positive,” explains the founder of PozPlanet magazine and PozTO Awards. “The concept of I'm undetectable, we just did something that was unsafe - you're fine. That happened a couple times.”
While it may not have been news to her, U=U took on a whole new relevance when she performed a cover of Unforgettable, with the key lyric changed to Undetectable, at the AIDS Memorial in Toronto.
“From the second that I said the first 'undetectable' on stage. I could just feel the crowd. They were there with me. The warmth. The energy. It was a moment,” Jade recalls. “When I performed that song. That's when I actually understood how important the message was, and how it affected other people to hear that message.”
Canada was the first country in the world to endorse the science behind U=U in 2018. And this summer, the Canadian government endorsed a formal global declaration on Undetectable = Untransmittable (U=U), which “takes the global commitment to U=U one step further by recognizing the value of the message as a tool to advance efforts to end HIV as a public health concern, and by committing countries to integrate U=U into their policies and programs.”
Links
/ pozplanet
www.canada.ca/en/public-healt...