National HIV Testing Day is June 27, 2025.  While always stress the importance of HIV testing and knowing your status to Virginians.  However, our collective voices are even louder around this day.  We must stress the importance that HIV testing is an important part of their general health and well-being.

There are more ways than ever to get tested for HIV.  Our clients can do this through a healthcare provider if they have one, or access HIV testing through services that we provide.

Why It’s Important

The number of new HIV diagnoses were stable or declining for years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Since 2020, the number of HIV diagnoses and rate (per 100,000) rose annually.  Certain areas of Virginia and some groups of people are more impacted by HIV; the VDH website has information that explains some of these differences.

Visit the VDH HIV dashboard for more info.

National HIV Testing Day Event

Some VDH-funded community agencies are partnering with Walgreens and Greater Than HIV across the nation.  These agencies are offering free HIV testing on HIV Testing Day.  There are 9 agencies participating in Virginia.  These agencies will provide testing at 12 Walgreens locations across the state.  Visit www.greaterthan.org/walgreens for participating locations near you.

Some agencies/locations will also offer rapid syphilis and hepatitis C testing.

If you are a participating community agency and have questions or need help with this effort, please contact KFF at community@kff.org.

HIV Testing Resources

For HIV testing resources for your agency, visit the VDH Comms Hub.  There will be toolkit resources added soon specific to National HIV Testing Day 2025.  These will include social media postings and graphics.

If you need additional resources that are not on the VDH Comms Hub, please contact Chris Barnett, Public Relations Coordinator, at christopher.barnett@vdh.virginia.gov.

With great sadness, DDP shares the heartbreaking news that Chip Payette passed away unexpectedly, on Monday, April 28.  Prior to his passing, Chip had returned to the STD Prevention and Surveillance team after retiring from VDH.  He worked with providers on syphilis reactive lab results.

Before retiring, Chip had worked at VDH for many years.  He was a Disease Intervention Specialist in Charlottesville during the early years of the HIV epidemic, on the forefront of the public health response.  He dealt with the devastation that the early years of HIV caused.  He then served as the Northwest Regional Supervisor before taking on the role of Trainer in the Central Office for DDP.

His colleagues often described him as one of the kindest and most wonderful people that they had ever met.  He cared about his work, the patients he worked with, and making a real difference in public health in Virginia throughout his career.

Chip will be missed, and his legacy will be long remembered by all that he worked with.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) offered free printed materials to their partners and the public through a Publications Warehouse for many years. The demand for printed materials has declined and a focus on electronic materials has increased. As a result, CDC is ending this service and closing their warehouse.

The last day to place orders for printed materials from the CDC Publications Warehouse is September 2, 2025.

Place an order on their website before the deadline.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released four national HIV surveillance reports at the end of April:

• • HIV Surveillance Report: Diagnoses, Deaths, and Prevalence of HIV in the United States and 6 Territories and Freely Associated States, 2023
  • HIV Surveillance Supplemental Report: Monitoring Selected HIV Prevention and Care Objectives by Using Surveillance Data, 2023
  • HIV Surveillance Slide Set (Under HIV data resources): HIV Disease, Stage 3 (AIDS) 2023
  • HIV Surveillance Slide Set (Under HIV data resources): HIV Mortality, 2023

Click on the title of each to view the full report. Each page will give important updates or notes, if any about the reports.