World Aids Day

[Nirvanadragones]

If you're not infected, you are affected.

It's a typical line, I know. But it's true. For everyone out there - today, I light candles.

Blessed be

 

[Guest]

 

[Liar]

Today, there are special rhethorics seminars at the uni on the theme of how to adress the emotional underestimation of the AIDS problem both in third world countries and on our home turf. It's got too many political and cultural barriers to even be acknowledged sometimes. We talk pandemic bird flu and mad cow disease while AIDS, malaria and plain ol' famine is killing millions upon millions, due to the silence surrounding it.

The Red Cross and WHO is there, along with communication and culture academics buffs. Ought to be interresting.

 

[ABSTRUSE]

Today I remember Antonio

 

[feeeriek]

 

[Alessia Brio]

 

[Guest]

http://www.opt-x.de/JuliasWelt/img/04-12-ribbon.jpg

 

[scheherazade_79]

 

[ungenderless]

Please go to this site and light a candle. They will donate $1 to the National AIDS fund for every candle that is lit. Thank you.

Light To Unite

 

[moonlight elf]

 

[Skip1934a]

Please go to this site and light a candle. They will donate $1 to the National AIDS fund for every candle that is lit. Thank you.

Light To Unite

I did that. And so you'll know, my church is sponsoring a forum this coming Friday (not today) in cooperation with two AIDS awareness groups who work to help those afflicted.

 

[privyjo]

I started to post to this thread several times and never could make it to the submit button... In the quiet hours maybe I can.

A for CW who died at 32. A childhood friend. He died far away from family for the family refused his request to return home for his remaining days. Small town fear of "What will the neighbors say?"

 

[Huckleman2000]

for a coworker, ca. 1985, who lost weight and then vanished in what seemed like a few weeks.
for my cousin, namesake of his father and our grandfather. Sometime in the late 80s.
for my ex's co-worker and dear friend, who hung on for several years but passed sometime in the late 90s.
for my brother-in-law's son from his first marriage, who lived for years with the disease before killing himself last year.
for the others who I've forgotten or didn't know.

 

[slyc_willie]

I remember when I first heard of AIDS as a young boy, about 12 or 13 years old, and how it was, at the time, supposedly a 'gay disease.' 'Some guy fucked a monkey and got AIDS.' That is what we were lead to believe.

Ten years later, I sat with my fiance at the time after she had come back from the hospital. A friend of hers had died from complications due to AIDS. My fiance was angry and couldn't find the solace in her dying friend's last moments. I can relate to that.

So, yes, AIDS has affected me, perhaps not directly, but still. I have lit my candle.

 

[Samandiriel]

South Africa targets 50 percent drop in new HIV cases
by Fran Blandy




NELSPRUIT, South Africa (AFP) - South Africa has unveiled plans to halve the number of people being infected with the AIDS virus within five years by persuading youngsters to delay the start of their sex lives.

An action plan launched by Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka also contained target pledges to provide care for 80 percent of sufferers and their families in a country with the second highest incidence of HIV in the world.

"Key priority one: reduce by 50 percent the rate of new infections by 2011," read the plan unveiled in one of the regions worst hit by the epidemic.

It emphasised curbing new infections among young people as the key to success.

Better sex education was needed to this end, and ensuring that "a large proportion of youth 14-17 years of age delay the initiation of sex".

"The future course of the epidemic hinges in many respects on the behaviour young people adopt and maintain," the plan said Friday.

With South Africa registering one of the world's highest rates of teenage pregnancy, Mlambo-Ngcuka said there had to be a change in attitude towards sex among the country's youth.

"The estimate suggests that there are still many new infections among young people in our country and that delaying sexual activity by the young is critical," she said.

Her comments came after US President George W. Bush said abstinence was "the only sure way to avoid the sexual transmission of HIV/AIDS."

Education Minister Naledi Pandor said life skills programmes at schools have not yet yielded behavioural change among pupils.

"Young people have the information, they can tell you what you mean when you are talking about HIV, but it is clear those in their late teens are not altering their behaviour," she told AFP at the launch.

The South African government is heavily criticised at home and abroad over its approach to the epidemic which affects 5.5 million of the 47 million population.

Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, dubbed Dr Beetroot, has attracted particular derision for advocating a diet of garlic and vegetables to help combat the epidemic.

The new 2007-2011 action plan said further research would be financed on the role of nutrition and traditional medicine in boosting immunity.

Mlambo-Ngcuka has come to play an increasingly high-profile role in the fight against the disease while Tshabalala-Msimang, who has been ill, was absent from the launch in this northwestern city.

The minister's deputy recently attacked a culture of "denial" in dealing with the epidemic.

Mlambo-Ngcuka called Friday for an end to conflict in tackling the disease.

"If we focus our energy on conflicting with one another and on differences between us we will lose sight of our shared goals and weaken collective resolve and efforts to implement this plan," she said.

Anti-AIDS campaigners claim Tshabalala-Msimang's focus on vegetables has been at the expense of anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) which they say are the key to winning the fight against the disease.

Mlambo-Ngcuka said 213,000 people already benefited from a government-funded ARV programme and another 11,000 were joining every month. In addition, more than 360 million condoms were distributed annually.

Macharia Kamau, chief representative in South Africa of the UN children's fund UNICEF, hailed the government's recent performance.

"This country has made great strides in the provision of treatment over the past couple of years. It has the fastest growing uptake and largest number of people on ARV treatment," he said.

"I make a special plea that this country makes a special effort to contain the impact of AIDS on children."

The words of praise are in stark contrast to criticism from the UN's chief envoy on AIDS in Africa who accused the government in August of espousing "theories more worthy of a lunatic fringe than of a concerned and compassionate state."

 

[Misty_Morning]

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