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December 01, 2006

World AIDS Day

Originally posted on Quick Hits from Syracuse.com.

Today is World AIDS Day.

Back in 1981, doctors started seeing a strange virus they would later dub Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV), which they discovered led to an incurable disease they called Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, or AIDS (Britannica - WebMD).

For those of us who came of age during the second half of the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, AIDS shaped our high school curricula. Health class was used to scare the b'jeepers out of us, and we learned what condoms were for and how to use them.

World AIDS Day was first observed in 1988, when we started to realize that AIDS was not only bigger than we first thought, but that it was spreading fast enough to call it an epidemic. Some have even gone so far as to call it a pandemic.

UNAIDS, a United Nations program, organized World AIDS Day until 2004. Last year, it handed organization to the independent non-profit World AIDS Campaign. UNAIDS continues to do research into global AIDS, and recently published a report (PDF) finding that AIDS continues to spread, it has killed about 25 million people to date, and another 39.5 million people worldwide are living with AIDS.

A global AIDS charity, Avert, tells us that half of all people who get AIDS contract the disease before they are 25, and die by the time they turn 35.

This year, the (PRODUCT) RED campaign launched, first in the UK and then in the U.S., with proceeds from various products going to fight AIDS around the world. Products include an iPod Nano, a cell phone, and GAP t-shirts.

There are also some events going on locally.

More World AIDS Day: News - Blogs - Talk

Posted by josh at December 1, 2006 06:04 AM

Comments

Thanks for the info on Product Red. It's the perfect time of year to give gifts that benefit the recipient and society.

Posted by: tconnery at December 1, 2006 08:45 AM

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