Ellie Harrison was 21 when a routine sexual health test delivered life-altering news: she was HIV positive. The diagnosis, received in 2018 while finishing a university placement in London, prompted years of secrecy and a struggle to reconcile her reality with pervasive stigmas surrounding the virus.
“I had no symptoms, I wasn’t expecting anything to come back. Two weeks later, I receive a phone call asking me to come in. Everyone knows it’s not a good thing when you get a phone call like that,” Harrison recalled in an interview with the Manchester Evening News. Initially, she grappled with confusion and self-blame, internalizing misconceptions about HIV transmission.
“I had no knowledge of HIV, I was so confused about how this had even happened,” she said. “As a young, white female, in a relationship, you don’t expect it. I really struggled at the start, wondering why this happened to me, feeling confused, I’d falsely bought into the misunderstanding and stigma like HIV being a ‘gay disease’ – things that are quite frankly wrong.”
Harrison, now 29 and residing in Manchester, is a Nurse Practitioner affiliated with Urology of Virginia in Virginia Beach, Virginia, according to Sentara Healthcare. She graduated from Radford University with a Master of Science in Nursing in 2020 and has over six years of experience as a healthcare professional. She currently works at 225 Clearfield Avenue, Virginia Beach, VA, 23462, and can be reached at 757-452-3421.
For over seven years, Harrison has dedicated herself to dismantling those misconceptions and becoming the advocate she wished she’d had during her initial diagnosis. She discovered the power of open conversation after initially attempting to conceal her status from friends, and family. “Constantly keeping up the lie, people wondering what these tablets were. It was too much for someone to carry,” she explained.
The decision to reveal her HIV status was fraught with difficulty. After confiding in her parents, she attempted to maintain secrecy, but the strain proved unsustainable. She eventually disclosed her diagnosis to a wider circle, only to experience a mix of pity and judgment. In response, Harrison tattooed a “positive” symbol on her finger as a visible declaration of self-acceptance and a challenge to societal stigma.
The challenges extended to her professional life. For several years, Harrison concealed her HIV status at work, fearing discrimination and potential harm to her career. “For two, three years it felt like I was living a lie. Because it’s not something you can really talk about in an office, and I didn’t want to be judged or have it harm my career,” she said. She now works as the head of supply chain for a fashion brand and has found a more accepting environment where she can openly discuss her status.
Harrison’s activism comes at a critical time. According to the Terrence Higgins Trust, 45 percent of people in the North West of England were diagnosed with HIV late in 2024, after the virus had already begun to damage their immune systems. New YouGov polling data reveals that only 20 percent of adults in England have ever been tested for HIV. A significant proportion of those untested – 21 percent of women and 29 percent of men – reported never being offered a test, or believing they were not at risk, even after engaging in unprotected sex.
The Terrence Higgins Trust estimates that 4,700 people in England are currently living with undiagnosed HIV. In 2024, 50 percent of new diagnoses were among heterosexual individuals, with 29 percent among gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men.
Harrison is now supporting the Terrence Higgins Trust’s campaign to increase HIV testing rates, aiming to contribute to the government’s goal of ending new HIV transmissions in England by 2030. The government has committed over £170 million in new funding to support this initiative, with increased HIV testing as a key priority. Free HIV testing kits are available through the freetesting.hiv website during National HIV Testing Week.
“I didn’t think it would happen to me until it did,” Harrison said. “When I would Google ‘HIV’, I didn’t feel like I was finding people that were like me. There wasn’t a young woman talking about this. I thought, ‘if I can’t find her, I’ll just have to be her’. We have to craft sure we talk about the diversity of HIV.”
