Antoinette Jones was nine years old when her mother spoke to her in the kitchen to deliver two pieces of news: her parents were getting divorced and she had been born HIV positive. Her mother told her not to tell anyone.

“I just remember standing in the kitchen with my mother, and her having to tell me and seeing the look on her face,” she recalls. “It hurt me more to see her so upset. It was not that I had to be an adult, it’s that I had a secret that I had to carry. And because of stigma, I was told I couldn’t share the secret with anybody – it was a secret between myself and God.”

Fourteen years later, Jones works to help others with HIV, performing diagnostic tests and sharing the message that in 2018, a positive result need not be a death sentence. It is a highly charged moment for both the patient and the counsellor.

This work helps to overcome the stigma still associated with HIV in the minds of some, and which led her mother to think she was protecting her from the bigotry of others.

Sometimes, she says, people can “freak out” after receiving a positive test result. There was an occasion when a patient said they planned to kill themselves there and then, after hearing the news.

“I have to connect with them and let them take a couple of deep breaths, and let them come to some kind of peace,” she says.

“Sometimes, I have to tell my story – that I was born with HIV, and that I’m continuing with my life. How I’m continuing to fight HIV. I have to tell them HIV is no longer a death sentence and that the stigma is based on everything you were told in 1988, it’s not relevant today. It’s not based on fact.”

Jones, 23, is a so-called peer navigator with the Atlanta-based SisterLove, Inc, the oldest women-focused HIV and reproductive justice advocacy group in the southeastern US. It is one of the organisations supported by the Elton John AIDS Foundation, which The Independent and the Evening Standard are partnering with for this year’s Christmas charity appeal.

Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation Show all 10 1 /10 Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation Sir Elton John and Evgeny Lebedev The Independent has launched it's Christmas charity appeal for essential HIV testing around the world with the Elton John AIDS Foundation. Funds raised will pay for those at risk to be able to get tested, and will make sure they have access to the treatment they need. Sir Elton John and Evgeny Lebedev with their HIV test swabs at the Ponce Centre in Atlanta Jeremy Selwyn Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation Elton John and Andrew Williams Andrew Williams had never heard of the word HIV when he tested positive. It was his mother who had forced him to go to the doctor where he got the diagnosis that he thought was a death sentence. At that time he was in a wheelchair. It was the unbearable itching of his back that finally got him to get medical help but, he discovered, he not only had HIV but diabetes, high blood pressure and kidney disease. That was two years ago. This week, as the 31-year-old joined Sir Elton John and Evening Standard and The Independent owner Evgeny Lebedev in Atlanta to witness the revolutionary new breakthroughs against the disease at the city’s Grady Ponce De Leon Centre, there was no need for a wheelchair. Nor, he now knew, was there any need for fear Jeremy Selwyn Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation Evgeny Lebedev and Andrew Williams Within two months of starting the latest antiretroviral drugs, the virus in his body had become undetectable in his blood. Not only is he now healthy, partly due to the drugs and partly due to the healthy lifestyle adopted for his other illnesses, but he can virtually not pass the infection to other people. He feels, he says, “reborn”. “I have a reason to live,” he explained, “and that is to help people who were like me – and to show you’re going to be OK.” Jeremy Selwyn Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation It was a message so stark in its optimism that it reduced Sir Elton to tears. He knows first-hand the realities of what, in the past, an HIV diagnosis can mean. When he started his Elton John AIDS Foundation in the US in 1992, it was because his friends were dying and he wanted to do what he could, anything that he could, to help. “When we set up the Elton John AIDS Foundation we were delivering meals to people’s doors,” he said. “[The stigma meant] they would not go outside. We have come a long way.” Jeremy Selwyn Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation But part of the reason for his tears was not only happiness at Andrew’s story. It was also the knowledge that, despite all the advances that have been made, the fight is far from won – indeed, in some parts of the world, things are getting worse. Sir Elton John with everyone at the Ponce Centre in Atlanta Jeremy Selwyn Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation It is why he and Mr Lebedev had come to Atlanta to mark the first day of our Christmas Appeal, for that city, sadly, is one place where the situation is not only getting worse but, as those at the centre made clear, dramatically so. Jeremy Selwyn Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation Sir Elton John with Vic Mensa at the Ponce Centre Jeremy Selwyn Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation Sir Elton John with his HIV test swab In Atlanta, one of America’s richest cities and the home of such international corporate giants as Coca-Cola and CNN, if you are a gay black man in 2018 then, unbelievably, you still have a one in two chance of being diagnosed as HIV positive during your lifetime. Jeremy Selwyn Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation Elton John with the mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms Jeremy Selwyn Independent campaign with the Elton John AIDS Foundation Elton John talks at the Ponce Centre Jeremy Selwyn

Sir Elton and Evgeny Lebedev, the owner of the newspapers, recently travelled to Atlanta to hear directly from people such as Jones. The city, where some of the world’s biggest companies including CNN, Coca Cola and FedEx are headquartered, has HIV infection rates comparable to a number of cities in southern Africa.

In the US today, a gay black man has a one in two chance of being diagnosed with HIV. In Atlanta, it is even worse – perhaps closer to 60 per cent. There are many reasons for this, but racism, homophobia, poverty and lack of education about HIV are central to allowing the virus to still be an epidemic for some communities, 31 years after the first antiretroviral drug, AZT, was licensed.

In a joint message, Sir Elton and Mr Lebedev said: “As we write, 37m people globally are living with HIV. Last year alone, 1.8m people contracted the virus and 940,000 died of an Aids-related illness. This need not happen.

“Today’s medicines not only enable those living with HIV to have full and fulfilling lives, but also ensure they cannot pass the virus on to others. The challenge is that too many people still do not realise they are at risk, are too afraid of the stigma or are denied the chance of taking an HIV test.”

Elton John launches The Independent's AIDSfree campaign

Jones, who grew up in New York, was adopted by her aunt – the woman she calls and considers her mother – and her aunt’s husband. Jones was adopted along with all of her five brothers and sisters. One of Jones’s siblings is also HIV positive. After her parents divorced, she lost contact with some of her siblings, but earlier this year they reconnected on social media. She has also spoken to her biological mother.

SisterLove, Inc was formed in 1993 by Dázon Dixon Diallo to force the authorities to think about how Aids and HIV was affecting women. Diallo said there was a time officials did not even count infection rates among women. That changed in 1994. “We used to say women don’t get Aids, we just die from it,” she said.

The group, which has long burned a proudly feminist flame, occupies a bright and airy 117-year-old property in Adamsville, a traditionally African American neighbourhood in the west of Atlanta. Sunshine fills many of the high-ceilinged rooms.

Diallo says if people test positive, they are encouraged to start treatment as soon as possible and they help arrange it. Some start medication the very same day.

Most of the people they help are aged 16 to 25, says Jones. “Many of our clients know about us before they search for ‘free tests for sexually transmitted disease’, and we usually come up first.”

The group aims to treat everyone they encounter with compassion and understanding. “I try and make them feel very comfortable,” Jones says.

She says several things in society made her job harder – social media, which spreads false information about HIV “like a virus”, and some music that still uses language from the 1980s.