With an estimated 40 million people living with HIV and AIDS, today’s World AIDS Day serves as a national reminder of a growing epidemic. “Live and let live” is the slogan of the two-year campaign that began in 2002, focusing on eliminating stigma and discrimination against people with HIV and AIDS.
According to the World AIDS Day campaign, “people with or suspected of having HIV may be turned away from health care services, denied housing and employment, shunned by their friends and colleagues, turned down for insurance coverage or refused entry into foreign countries.” As a result people are less inclined to publicly admit they are sick and prevention awareness becomes more difficult.
When HIV entered the public sphere in the early to mid-1980s, all attention was drawn to demystifying the virus that led to the fatal illness AIDS. Now that 20 years has passed, HIV and AIDS has become another persistent problem many have become immune to – except for those living with it.
Organizations such as the World Health Organization, the world AIDS campaign and the Columbus AIDS Taskforce have fought to serve as advocates, reminding people the devastating statistics are real and the medical treatments, while there, aren’t enough. Meanwhile, much of American society has turned deaf ears, more preoccupied by the economy or the situation in Iraq.
But in the United States, about 900,000 people are HIV positive, more than at any other time, and the numbers are growing. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention about 40,000 new HIV cases are reported a year. In Africa, 26.6 million people are infected.
Southern Africa is the worst containing less than two percent of the global population, but home to 30 percent of people living with HIV/AIDS. Poverty, lack of medical treatment and awareness are all factors leading to AIDS being the No.1 cause of death in Africa.
The numbers prove HIV/AIDS effects everyone. Locally, 172 HIV cases were reported in Franklin County, contributing to the 799 in Ohio. Of those people, many live hidden lives, rejected by the ignorance of others. With the focus on stigma and discrimination, World AIDS day should encourage people to speak out and break the “barriers to effective HIV/AIDS prevention and care.” Only as a whole society can the AIDS epidemic be defeated.
