For World AIDS Day this year, I have a wish: a wish for a miracle of messaging and marketing, followed by a miracle of practical delivery (both preferably performed by a pink fairy). A miracle that will get a three-pronged message effectively out and across, to every person on our continent, and particularly to the (many) men amongst them who have sex with other men.

The first and most important message this year is that AIDS is a medically manageable condition. A fully treatable condition. In most cases – the overwhelming majority of cases, well over 90% – HIV-related illness can be treated. In fact, some AIDS specialists are saying that under correct medical supervision it is easier to deal with AIDS than other chronic manageable conditions like high blood pressure. That is an extraordinary thought – but once you're on the right regimen of medication, and your immune system is functioning once more, for most people few further medical interventions are needed. (This past month, in November, I celebrated ten years of life and health and vigour on anti-retroviral medication – I started in November 1997, when I was dying of AIDS, and the drugs have kept me wholly healthy since then – I see my doctor twice a year for check-ups and blood tests, none of which have been able to detect live virus in my blood for many years.)

So the first message is deal with AIDS as a treatable condition – not a horror story. Engage with the epidemic – deal with it practically and realistically. Get over phobias and fears and aversions. AIDS is not a death sentence. With medical care, it need not be.

So, first and foremost, have yourself tested for HIV – and if you’ve been tested already, test again. You don’t need to fear the result as a death sentence.

And that’s the second imperative message of this World AIDS Day. It flows from the first. It is that we must stop treating HIV infection and AIDS-related illnesses as something weird. It’s not weird. Or, at least, not weirder than any other viral condition.

It’s a bodily syndrome caused by a virus – a virus that effective medication stops in its tracks, leaving the infected person to resume a normal health life. In other words we must stop stigma. That means stopping blame, moralism, condemnation. That means ending abnormal responses to HIV infection. The only truly exceptional response that HIV now calls for are continuing anti-discrimination measures. For the rest, let’s accept that we have a massive epidemic in this country, in this region, and let’s get on with dealing with it as effectively, practically, humanely and quickly as we’re able.

The third message of this World AIDS Day is one the pink fairy delivers with particular intensity to all men who have sex with men. It is this. Beware. Although AIDS is now medically manageable, you'd be crazy to expose yourself to the risk of getting it. So don’t. Please don’t. I have HIV – and I can assure you you don’t want to have it. Though I'm joyfully grateful that medical care and treatment gave me my life back, I can assure you that it’s not convenient to have to take pills for the rest of my life. And those check-ups! Just as I don’t want high blood pressure or diabetes, or any other inconvenient chronic condition, you don’t want HIV. So love carefully, protectively, respectfully.

And although UNAIDS came out in November with welcome revisions to their statistical data – indicating that the worldwide epidemic is about one-quarter smaller than we feared – that’s no good news for men who have sex with men. Indications are that in MSM communities infection rates are climbing. I hear hair-raising stories from friends who visit Johannesburg’s on-site sex centres – of condom unavailability – of men who ‘want it raw’. Having it ‘raw’ means exposing yourself to HIV. Don’t. Please.

If you're HIV negative, stay that way. It’s not difficult. HIV is hard to transmit. So love safely. Stay out of HIV’s way.

So, for this World AIDS Day, let’s remember that AIDS is medically treatable, that stigma is irrational and unnecessary, and that we must continue, unceasingly, unremittingly, unendingly, with our prevention messages. A combination of effective prevention, effective treatment and an end to stigma.

That would give us something not to mourn, but to celebrate on this World AIDS Day.