Today 1st December 1, 2007 is the ‘World AIDS Day’. Through out the world in nearly every country this day will be celebrated to spread awareness about the disease, which is killing nearly 6000 people every day. Even the Miss World pageant that is being held simultaneously on the Chinese holiday island of Sanya will be used as a venue for spreading AIDS awareness.
Now the pertinent question is how grim is the AIDS scenario at present and whether the earlier campaigns in which a number of international celebrities participated bear any fruit. To begin with a good news, UNAIDS has reduced its estimate about the number of people living with HIV or AIDS to 330million from nearly 40 million after overhauling its method for data collection. The number of new infections has also fallen from 3.0 million in the late 1990s to an estimated 2.5 million in 2007. Antiretroviral drugs are now freely available in Africa, which is the home to two-third of the world’s population suffering from AIDS. According to WHO, at the end of 2006 more than 2 million people were getting the vital pills, a 54% increase over the previous year.
Despite substantial progress against AIDS worldwide, the US Agency for International Development commented in the Lancet, London medical journal, that we are still losing ground. Despite of increase in availability of antiretroviral drugs it is actually available to only 10% of the patients who need them. Social stigma continues to act as an insurmountable hindrance to AIDS activists. Indonesia, a predominantly Muslim country is witnessing the fastest growing AIDS epidemic in Asia. In a recent survey in South Korea, it was found that most South Koreans believe that people carrying the virus must be kept separate from rest of the society.
Funding continues to remain the biggest area of concern. According to the UN, there is currently an $8 billion shortfall in resources to fight AIDS, including basic prevention, treatment and care for orphaned children.
Source:AFP
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