The Basics
AIDS is the same age as our ambassador Alicia Keys. And still we, as a society, continue to do very little in spite of the fact that it is the worst health crisis in human history.
We must come together to convince our leaders to provide lifesaving AIDS treatment to the poor of our world. Lack of infrastructure, poor transportation, shortages of trained workers are substantial impedences, but can be overcome if as a people's movement we rise up and say NO MORE. STOP THE DYING.
We must not forget that stigma, discrimination and denial about issues such as sexuality and drug use may be as great as any other barrier to an effective response to AIDS. It has been estimated that as many as two-thirds of the new HIV infections expected to occur in this decade could be averted by the implementation of a comprehensive range of evidence-based prevention measures. But prevention and treatment must go hand in hand. Hope in a community works best to de-stigmatize people with HIV/AIDS and gets people into clinics to be tested, which creates dialog between people and an openness to changing behavior.
90% of those infected don't know it. Ignorance causes nearly 7,000 new infections and 5,700 deaths daily. Over 2.5 million people will become newly infected and 2.1 million will lose their lives to AIDS each year (76% will be in Sub Saharan Africa) devastating the economic and family structure of this region.
AIDS has a female face almost everywhere in the developing world, and especially in sub-Saharan Africa where, on average, three women are infected for every two men, and among the 15-24 age group three women are infected for every one man. Women continue to bear the brunt of the pandemic by caring for the sick and taking in AIDS orphans more often.
In some areas of South Africa the epidemic is thought to be in 41% of the population.
In general, the epidemic continues to outpace the response. The whole situation creates havoc, with 13 million AIDS Orphans in Africa alone, children trying to raise their siblings in terrible circumstances, not receiving education or being able to be properly nourished and falling prey to sexual coercion or worse, being recruited into rebel armies as child soldiers.
AIDS strikes down adults in their most economically productive years and removes the very people who could respond to a crisis.
"No matter how the AIDS epidemic takes shape in any given country, its social and economic effects - and particularly its erosion of human capital - will continue to grow for many years after the prevalence begins to fall." (UNAIDS 2006 ch4 pg 81) We must respond now to this, the greatest human catastrophe of all time. Think of the children and ACT now.