World AIDS Day, is the day when individuals and organisations from around the world come together to bring attention to the global AIDS epidemic. [VIDEO]
The 1st of December, World AIDS Day, is the day when individuals and organisations from around the world come together to bring attention to the global AIDS epidemic. 2008 marks the 20th anniversary of World AIDS Day.
The response to AIDS has changed greatly since 1988, when health ministers from around the world established the day to raise awareness about HIV. This year, the occasion’s official slogan is an ambitious “Stop AIDS.” We at IAVI agree that is the appropriate agenda.
In 20 years, important advances have been made expanding HIV prevention campaigns and getting life-prolonging treatments to HIV-infected individuals. Whilst we have come a long ways since 1988, there is still much more to be done.
This year: • An estimated 33 million people were living with HIV • There were 2.7 million new HIV infections, or 7,500 each day • There were 2 million AIDS-related deaths
Around 95% of people with HIV/AIDS live in developing nations. But HIV today is a threat to men, women and children on all continents around the world.
US President George W. Bush was to announce his administration had already met its goal of treating two million people living with HIV/AIDS by the end of the year, while his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao visited patients with the virus as part of a government effort to fight discrimination.
In South Africa, the country with the highest number of sufferers in the world, the government was mapping out its AIDS strategy under a new health minister as part of a sea-change in attitudes from the ANC government.
South Africans held a moment of silence at midday as a mark of respect for victims of the virus which has affected some 5.5 million people.
Speaking at a ceremony in the eastern port city of Durban, newly-appointed Health Minister Barbara Hogan urged men to overcome their traditional reluctance and voluntarily test for HIV.
In Johannesburg, the celebrated Beninese singer Angelique Kidjo also called for reducing the stigma still attached to the disease. Kidjo, who performed in South Africa on Saturday, is travelling to Dakar later Monday for a two-day musical campaign aimed at reducing the stigma of AIDS.
China has about 700,000 people who are HIV-positive, according to a previously released estimate by the Chinese government and UN health organisations. However only about 260,000 have been officially identified as having the disease.
Meanwhile in Washington, the White House said that Bush's emergency plan for AIDS relief (PEPFAR) had now supported life-saving antiretroviral treatment for over 2.1 million men, women and children living with HIV/AIDS around the world, including more than two million people in Sub Saharan Africa.
When President George W. Bush announced PEPFAR in 2003, it was estimated that only 50,000 people were receiving treatment for HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. Today, PEPFAR supports treatment for more than 2 million people in sub-Saharan Africa -- forty times the number receiving treatment only five years ago.
"PEPFAR is the largest commitment by any nation to combat a single disease in human history. http://www.pepfar.gov/
