NZHF, Motion Sickness challenge Aotearoa to become the best place in the world to have herpes

A new ‘herpes destigmatisation campaign’ aims to change how people in Aotearoa view the virus and raise national pride at the same time. 

The New Zealand Herpes Foundation (NZHF) has teamed up with Motion Sickness, FINCH, ED.l, DigPR, and TRA to launch an ambitious behaviour-change campaign, aiming to achieve a historic milestone for Aotearoa.

New Zealand’s national pride may be waning—but the solution is obvious: herpes. 

Launching on October 13, Global Herpes Awareness Day, the campaign targets the virus’s worst symptom: social stigma. Pop culture, misinformation, and New Zealanders’ discomfort with discussing sex have all contributed to the significant stigmatisation of people living normal lives with the herpes virus.

Though up to 80% of Kiwis contract oral or genital herpes at some point in their lives, new research from TRA reveals New Zealand has one of the highest rates of herpes stigma worldwide, leaving thousands struggling with shame and isolation from this infamous but largely benign virus. According to the NZHF, 30% of those diagnosed with herpes in New Zealand experience depressive or suicidal thoughts. 

In an effort to educate the entire nation and dismantle the stigma, the campaign features local famous people including Sir Ashley Bloomfield, Sir Graham Henry, Sir Buck Shelford, Angella Dravid, and Mea Motu as celebrity presenters in the ‘Herpes Destigmatisation Course’—a series of lessons that condense multiple educational resources—often left unread—into accessible, approachable and comedic content.

“In many cases the social stigma is much more damaging than the virus. We have fielded thousands of calls to our support helpline, with many people having received a diagnosis in deep distress. However the reason for this psychological impact is sometimes not the medical symptoms -it’s the stigma. We have tried to land a stigma breaking campaign for over 20 years and have never managed to crack it.  We are simply floored by this campaign and couldn’t be happier with how it has navigated this challenging topic and made it approachable, kiwi and fun. Thank you to Motion Sickness and the wider team, let’s claim the title.” Says Claire Hurst NZRN, QSM, Founding Trustee for NZHF and current Helpline Counsellor.

In order to quantify being ‘the best place in the world,’ independent insights agency TRA conducted a pre-campaign omnibus survey across 10 OECD countries. The sample in each country is nationally representative of the population aged 18 and over, based on age, gender and region. In the survey, people responded to a question about their views on the Herpes Virus, which provided the baseline for the Herpes Stigma Index that ranked the countries at the start of this campaign.

The results showed that Spain started in 1st place with the lowest national Herpes Stigma. New Zealand had the second-highest rate of fear of stigmatisation, placing New Zealand 9th in the world.

In addition to the destigmatisation video course, the website also features the Herpes Stigma Index leaderboard that serves to motivate participation in the video course by adding a competitive element with live updates derived from web data. By watching the video course content and engaging with content online, users can reduce their own stigma and help their country gain points to climb the leaderboard.

As noted on the campaign website, ‘With a little education, we can become the number one nation.’ Since the campaign launched, Kiwis have already helped New Zealand climb to 8th place, but there’s still some way to go to claim the number one title.

To measure whether the campaign leaderboard reflects a true shift in stigma, TRA will conduct a post-campaign survey across the 10 OECD countries.

Within the first 4 days, the campaign amassed over 5000 lesson views, and over 1.2 million views and 152,897 engagements across social media. Across all channels the campaign has already reached 565,728 unique Kiwis and the current Google trend report for ‘herpes’ has significantly increased following launch.

Established in 1994, the New Zealand Herpes Foundation (NZHF) is a registered charity dedicated to supporting people living with the herpes virus by facilitating support networks, promoting education programs, counselling mental health support hotline and advocating for optimal management and reducing societal stigma.

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