World AIDS Day
Tuesday 28 August 07
World AIDS Day 2006
Last Friday the 1st December saw the commemoration of another World AIDS day.
Around forty million people are living with HIV throughout the world - and that number increases in every region every day. In the UK alone, more than 60,000 people are living with HIV and more than 7,000 more are diagnosed every year. Every year more people die of AIDS than perished in the Asian Tsunami last Christmas.
Ignorance and prejudice are fuelling the spread of a preventable disease.
So what exactly is HIV? HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus. HIV attacks the body’s immune system, the body’s defense again disease. If HIV is detected and treated early, sufferers can have a normal lifespan but may be at risk from some serious health problems.
If left undetected for a long time HIV may turn into AIDS. AIDS stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, a person is considered to have AIDS when their immune system becomes so weak it can no longer fight off the kinds of diseases it would normally be able to cope with.
There are many misconceptions of how HIV or AIDS is passed from one person to the other. Contrary to popular belief neither disease may be passed by casual contact such as hugging, shaking hands, sharing knives or forks or kissing. It can only be transmitted through exposure to HIV infected blood, sexual fluids or breast milk.
Most people associate AIDS with third world nations like Africa or with the gay community, but HIV and AIDS can affect anyone. First discovered in 1981 real public awareness of the disease did not really come until the 1990’s thanks to high profile characters such as Princess Diana highlighting and dispelling myths about the problem. In 1990 the popular soap Eastenders was the first mainstream TV programme to highlight the issue when one of its lead characters Mark Fowler was diagnosed with HIV. In the years that followed the UK alone lost many of its brightest stars to AIDS including the legendary Freddie Mercury.
World AIDS Day Red Ribbon
The red ribbon associated with World AIDS Day has been an international symbol of HIV for fifteen years; The Red Ribbon Project was created by the New York based organisation Visual AIDS, which brought together artists to create a symbol of support for the growing number of people living with HIV in the US.
The first international celebrity to wear a red ribbon was Jeremy Irons at the 1991 Tony Awards. The symbol came to Europe on a mass scale on Easter Monday in 1992, when more than 100,000 red ribbons were distributed during the Freddie Mercury AIDS Awareness Tribute Concert at Wembley stadium. More than 1 billion people in more than 70 countries worldwide watched the show on television. Throughout the nineties many celebrities wore red ribbons, encouraged by Princess Diana’s high profile support for AIDS. Today the wearing of red ribbons is much more widespread and not simply restricted to celebrities.
Alan Fletcher a.k.a. Dr Karl Kennedy of Aussie soap ‘Neighbours’ fame launches World AIDS Day at QUB Students Union (www.qubsu.org)
Some of the events held to commemorate World AIDS day were a ceilidh in Edinburgh, a red ribbon ball in Matlock, and right here at home World AIDS Day and a ‘Treatment for AIDS for all by 2010’ petition was launched in the Queen’s University Students Union by a face very close to the hearts of students, Erinsborough’s very own Doctor Karl Kennedy also known in real life as Alan Fletcher!
To find out more about World AIDS Day and see what you can do to support this cause check out www.worldaidsday.org
