December 1st is World AIDS Day. A day of observance that started in 1988 to help bring awareness, collect funding, and educate people about the growing concern of the little known virus HIV.
Today almost everyone has heard of HIV but many don't know how large of a scope it really is. World wide, according to Your STD Help, there are an estimated 33 million people living with HIV and AIDS most of whom contract the virus before the age of 25 and die before they are 35 because of lack of funding and proper education. In Canada there is an estimated 65,000 people living with HIV as of 2008 up from 57,000 in 2005 according to Avert.
This years World AIDS Day theme is "Getting to Zero". After 30 years of the global fight against HIV/AIDS, this year the focus is on achieving 3 targets: Zero new HIV infections. Zero discrimination. Zero AIDS-related deaths. Zero New HIV Infections
HIV is transmitted in three main ways. Through infected blood to blood contact, sexual transmission, and mother to child transmission.
In order to achieve zero new HIV infections within any kind of decent time frame health officials need to push for more HIV education, proper condom usage, a slowing of intravenous needle usage, and extensive testing programs. Zero Discrimination
Discrimination doesn't just hurt the ones that are being discriminated against but skews the perception of HIV and AIDS for people with the disease and those that may be at risk of contracting it.
According to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, "Stigma remains the single most important barrier to public action. It is a main reason why too many people are afraid to see a doctor to determine whether they have the disease, or to seek treatment if so. It helps make AIDS the silent killer, because people fear the social disgrace of speaking about it, or taking easily available precautions. Stigma is a chief reason why the AIDS epidemic continues to devastate societies around the world."
Zero AIDS Related Deaths
Since the beginning of the epidemic, nearly 30 million people have died from AIDS-related causes world wide. In Canada from 1987 to 2006 16,452 have died from HIV related causes according to the PHAC.
The goal of zero AIDS related deaths refers to under privileged people and poor countries around the world that lack proper the medication and resources that would increase life expectancy 10 fold.
Get Involved
There's a lot going on in Canada in observance of World AIDS Day if you would like to get involved.
