Bloggers Unite for World AIDS Day 2008

1 December is the 21st World AIDS Day. I am joining a ton of other bloggers again to unite for a common, awesome cause. Bloggers Unite for World AIDS Day 2008. After you read my post, check out the other bloggers writing on this cause to inform people.

Yet, this diseases is still spreading, still killing, still being ignored by so many who don't want to simply get tested.

And contrary to some opinions, the crisis is not overblown. There are still people contracting this disease that could be prevented. That simple fact makes it still a crisis. There are other humanitarian issues as well, but HIV/AIDS is a worldwide one that still needs to be addressed along with the flu and malaria and the various causes of diarrhea.

Worldwide there are 33 million people living with HIV. Here are some more statistics from NAT:

• 30.8 million adults
• 15.5 million women
• 2.0 million children under the age of 15

And there are steadily more and more new cases of this disease being found (these are stats from 2007:

• 2.7 million total new cases
• 2.3 million adults
• 370,000 children under the age of 15

Because of so many great treatments and even a new ray of hope just last month of a man who appears to have been cured of AIDS.

HIV-related deaths in 2007:

• 2.0 million total deaths

According to Avert.org there have been 25 million people who have died of AIDS since 1981. There are 11.6 million AIDS orphans in Africa.

But this disease is mostly preventable. Be safe. Get tested.

One in 250 in the USA are carrying HIV, according to the CDC.

Young people under 25 account for 1/2 of all new HIV infections worldwide. That is insane. I know that there are a lot of other STDs going around in the young people I teach, but I'm not sure that they understand that this disease CAN affect them. I'm not sure that YOU know that it could affect you. I'm sure the students at St. Louis' Normandy High School thought they were immune to this disease, but they received a rude awakening earlier this fall.

President Bush has never gotten props from me, but he can get a slight tip of the mini-afro for his work on PEPFAR (President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief - reauthorized just this past July). According to their site, this legislation is working in an effort

combat global HIV/AIDS [At $48 billion, it is] the largest commitment by any nation to combat a single disease in human history. The new legislation will dramatically increase the financial commitment to this fight -- authorizing up to $48 billion to combat global HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria... [It] will support treatment for at least 3 million people; prevention of 12 million new infections; and care for 12 million people, including 5 million orphans nad vulnerable children.

In developing and transitional countries, 9.7 million people are in immediate need of life-saving AIDS drugs; of these, only 2.99 million (31%) are receiving the drugs.

Give money and support organizations working to find a cure as well as organizations working to help those who are living with this HIV/AIDS.

It's as though we all hear this information so much, that it seems irrelevant to us.

Get tested. Care about those who are infected. Give money to those that are working toward a cure.

It's that simple, yet that complicated.