World AIDS Day takes place on December 1, each year. It’s an opportunity for people worldwide to unite in the fight against HIV, to show support for people living with HIV, and to commemorate those who have died from an AIDS-related illness.
This year the theme of world AIDS day is “Global solidarity, shared responsibility” to show support for those living with and affected by HIV, and remember those who lost their lives to AIDS.
Since it was proclaimed as a pandemic in 1981, HIV/AIDS has claimed more than 33 million individuals and contaminated around 0.7 per cent of the total populace.
There are over two million people living with HIV in India, making it the third-largest country with the HIV epidemic in the world.
Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a chronic disease that is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The immune system of the person who is suffering from the disease gets damaged and also reduces the disease fighting ability of the body.
There are various reasons through which a person can be affected by AIDS. Let’s take a look at some of them:
1. It can be contracted through body fluids like blood, semen, pre-seminal fluid, vaginal and rectal fluids, and breast milk of an infected woman.
2. Unprotected sex with a person who is infected can also pass on the deadly disease to another person.
3. Sharing injection needles, razor blades, knives among other things with an infected person can also be a reason for contraction of the disease.
World AIDS Day was first conceived in 1987 in the month of August by Thomas Netter and James W. Bann. Thomas Netter and James W. Bann were both public information officers for the AIDS Global Program of the World Health Organization Geneva, Switzerland. He conveyed his idea of AIDS Day to Dr. Johnathan Mann (Director of AIDS Global Program), who approved the idea and celebrated it on December 1 in 1988 as World AIDS Day. They decided to dedicate this date every year as World AIDS Day.
