AIDS is preventable
AIDS is having a huge impact on the world's most vulnerable and poorest people.
The HIV virus infects 13,500 people every day. At the end of 2004, 37.2 million adults and 2.2 million children were infected - 95% of these live in the developing world.
In 2004, 3.1 million people died of AIDS. On average, somebody dies every 10 seconds.
25 million people have died since AIDS was first diagnosed in 1981 - 6 million of these were children. More than 15 million children have been orphaned by AIDS.
There is hope for the future. Medicines that inhibit new infections allow many to survive with the disease. They are becoming more affordable through pressure on the drug companies and the wider availability of generic drugs.
...but apathy is lethal
What you can do:
1. Educate yourself to better understand the disease, and what you can do to minimise the risk to yourself.
2. Educate others as to what actions they can take on a personal level.
3. Volunteer with an AIDS organisation - providing anything from office help to buddying.
4. Raise funds for the global effort.
Major challenges:
- Women account for 57% of the people living with HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa, largely as a result of gender inequality, sexual violence and ignorance.
- Young people (aged 15 to 24) account for nearly half of all new HIV infection worldwide.
- Prevention programmes currently reach only 1 in 5 people at risk of infection.
- Only 1 in 10 pregnant women in poorer countries is offered services for preventing mother-to-child HIV transmission.
- Anti-retroviral treatment is available for only 7% of the people who need it in developing countries: a total of 400,000 people at the end of 2003.
Take Action
Erase the tax on condoms: The high price of condoms acts as a disincentive to consistent use, particularly for at-risk groups and young people.
Condoms in the UK are almost twice as expensive as in the USA, and dearer than elsewhere in Europe. They can be obtained free of charge on the National Health Service, but clinics ration them and they are hard to ask for. Ask your MP to write to the Secretary of State for Health, requesting he/she remove VAT from condoms.
Play these games:
The Tony Blair drugs test game at: www.actionaid.org.uk/1394/hiv_aids.html
Supershagland at: www.kikass.tv
Find Out More
The UN has set up UNAIDS to encourage global action, and the Global Fund to mobilise funds. The United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS: www.unaids.org
The Apathy is Lethal campaign promotes awareness and encourages action: www.apathyislethal.org
AVERT has a useful website: www.avert.org
Terrence Higgins Trust, the UK's first AIDS charity: www.tht.org.uk
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AIDS is a killer disease:
- The HIV virus infects 13,500 people every day.
- At the end of 2004, 37.2 million adults and 2.2 million children were infected - 95% of these live in the developing world.
- In 2004, 3.1 million people died of AIDS. On average, somebody dies every 10 seconds.
- 25 million people have died since AIDS was first diagnosed in 1981 - 6 million of these were children.
- More than 15 million children have been orphaned by AIDS.
- AIDS is preventable; but apathy is lethal. Find out what you can do to make a difference. Act now.
