World AIDS Day

World AIDS Day, observed December 1 each year, is dedicated to raising awareness of the AIDS pandemic caused by the spread of HIV infection. AIDS has killed more than 25 million people, with an estimated 33.2 million people living with HIV, making it one of the most destructive epidemics in recorded history. Despite recent, improved access to antiretroviral treatment and care in many regions of the world, the AIDS epidemic claimed an estimated 3.1 million (between 2.8 and 3.6 million) lives in 2005, of which more than half a million (570,000) were children.
The concept of a World AIDS Day originated at the 1988 World Summit of Ministers of Health on Programmes for AIDS Prevention. Since then, it has been taken up by governments, international organizations and charities around the world.
From its inception until 2004, UNAIDS spearheaded the World AIDS Day campaign, choosing annual themes in consultation with other global health organizations. In 2005 this responsibility was turned over to World AIDS Campaign (WAC), who chose Stop AIDS: Keep the Promise as the main theme for World AIDS Day observances through 2010, with more specific sub-taglines chosen annually. This theme is not specific to World AIDS Day, but is used year-round in WAC's efforts to highlight HIV/AIDS awareness within the context of other major global events including the G8 Summit. World AIDS Campaign also conducts “in-country” campaigns throughout the world, like the Student Stop AIDS Campaign, an infection-awareness campaign targeting young people throughout the UK.

World AIDS Day banner, European Commission building, Brussels

A large red ribbon hangs between columns in the north portico of the White House for World AIDS Day, November 30, 2007

A 67 m long "condom" on the Obelisk of Buenos Aires, Argentina, part of an awareness campaign for the 2005 World AIDS Day
It is common to hold memorials to honor persons who have died from HIV/AIDS on this day. Government and health officials also observe, often with speeches or forums on the AIDS topics. Since 1995 the President of the United States has made an official proclamation on World AIDS Day. Governments of other nations have followed suit and issued similar announcements.
World AIDS Day Themes 1988 - present
1988
Communication
1989
Youth
1990
Women and AIDS
1991
Sharing the Challenge
1992
Community Commitment
1993
Act
1994
AIDS and the Family
1995
Shared Rights, Shared Responsibilities
1996
One World. One Hope
1997
Children Living in a World with AIDS
1998
Force for Change: World AIDS Campaign With Young People
1999
Listen, Learn, Live: World AIDS Campaign with Children & Young People
2000
AIDS: Men Make a Difference
2001
I care. Do you?
2002
Stigma and Discrimination
2003
Stigma and Discrimination
2004
Women, Girls, HIV and AIDS
2005
Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise
2006
Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise - Accountability
2007
Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise - Leadership
2008
Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise - Leadership

Videos and Interviews.

General Information about the AIDS.

HISTORY OF THE AIDS

AIDS was first reported June 5, 1981, when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded a cluster of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (now still classified as PCP but known to be caused by Pneumocystis jirovecii) in five homosexual men in Los Angeles. In the beginning, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) did not have an official name for the disease, often referring to it by way of the diseases that were associated with it, for example, lymphadenopathy, the disease after which the discoverers of HIV originally named the virus. They also used Kaposi's Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infections, the name by which a task force had been set up in 1981. In the general press, the term GRID, which stood for Gay-related immune deficiency, had been coined. The CDC, in search of a name, and looking at the infected communities coined “the 4H disease,” as it seemed to single out Haitians, homosexuals, hemophiliacs, and heroin users. However, after determining that AIDS was not isolated to the homosexual community, the term GRID became misleading and AIDS was introduced at a meeting in July 1982. By September 1982 the CDC started using the name AIDS, and properly defined the illness.
A more controversial theory known as the OPV AIDS hypothesis suggests that the AIDS epidemic was inadvertently started in the late 1950s in the Belgian Congo by Hilary Koprowski's research into a poliomyelitis vaccine. According to scientific consensus, this scenario is not supported by the available evidence.
A recent study states that HIV probably moved from Africa to Haiti and then entered the United States around 1969.

WHAT IS THE AIDS?

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS or Aids) is a set of symptoms and infections resulting from the damage to the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). This condition progressively reduces the effectiveness of the immune system and leaves individuals susceptible to opportunistic infections and tumors. HIV is transmitted through direct contact of a mucous membrane or the bloodstream with a bodily fluid containing HIV, such as blood, semen, vaginal fluid, preseminal fluid, and breast milk. This transmission can involve anal, vaginal or oral sex, blood transfusion, contaminated hypodermic needles, exchange between mother and baby during pregnancy, childbirth, or breastfeeding, or other exposure to one of the above bodily fluids.
AIDS is now a pandemic. In 2007, an estimated 33.2 million people lived with the disease worldwide, and it killed an estimated 2.1 million people, including 330,000 children. Over three-quarters of these deaths occurred in sub-Saharan Africa, retarding economic growth and destroying human capital. Most researchers believe that HIV originated in sub-Saharan Africa during the twentieth century. AIDS was first recognized by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 1981 and its cause, HIV, identified by American and French scientists in the early 1980s.
Although treatments for AIDS and HIV can slow the course of the disease, there is currently no vaccine or cure. Antiretroviral treatment reduces both the mortality and the morbidity of HIV infection, but these drugs are expensive and routine access to antiretroviral medication is not available in all countries. Due to the difficulty in treating HIV infection, preventing infection is a key aim in controlling the AIDS epidemic, with health organizations promoting safe sex and needle-exchange programmers in attempts to slow the spread of the virus.

WHAT HAPPENS IF I'M HIV POSITIVE?
You might not know if you get infected by HIV. Some people get fever, headache, sore muscles and joints, stomach ache, swollen lymph glands, or a skin rash for one or two weeks. Most people think it's the flu. Some people have no symptoms.
The virus will multiply in your body for a few weeks or even months before your immune system responds. During this time, you won't test positive for HIV, but you can infect other people.
When your immune system responds, it starts to make antibodies. When this happens, you will test positive for HIV.
After the first flu-like symptoms, some people with HIV stay healthy for ten years or longer. But during this time, HIV is damaging your immune system.
One way to measure the damage to your immune system is to count your CD4 cells you have. These cells, also called "T-helper" cells, are an important part of the immune system. Healthy people have between 500 and 1,500 CD4 cells in a milliliter of blood.
Without treatment, your CD4 cell count will most likely go down. You might start having signs of HIV disease like fevers, night sweats, diarrhea, or swollen lymph nodes. If you have HIV disease, these problems will last more than a few days, and probably continue for several weeks.

The AIDS is a disease that has his origin of the virus of the VIH, disease is what it provokes is that in your body they get down the defenses of the immunological, and like that system as the time passes and the immunological system is weakening our body is affected by more facility by virus that normally they would not be a problem for an immunological system in normal conditions. It is possible to say that a case of AIDS has developed in you when your level of lymphocytes TD4 they are below 200 cells for milliliter of blood. The virus of the VIH can be contracted by the different types of corporal fluids (blood, semen vaginal secretions, mother milk and in some cases it salivates), a person infected with VIH can feel healthy well and even this way you are infected and inclusive it can transmit the virus.

Relationship between drugs and the AIDS.

What should you know about drugs and aids?

Since the beginning of the pandemic of HIV, one of the central factors in its spread has been the behavior associated with drug abuse, including the sharing of needles for injecting drugs and unsafe sexual behavior that can occur after poisoning with alcohol or drugs. HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus, which causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome or AIDS is a virus that lives and multiplies primarily in white blood cells (CD4 +), which are part of the immune system. Some important things you should know about AIDS is to know which way it spreads, HIV is transmitted through contact with blood or other body fluids of an infected person. In addition, pregnant women with HIV can transmit it to their babies during pregnancy, childbirth or breastfeeding to them.
You can get infected in your first time, if your partner has HIV and you have unsafe sex, then you can become infected.
The difference between HIV and AIDS is that HIV is the virus that causes AIDS. HIV stands for the 'Human Immunodeficiency Virus' and AIDS stands for the 'Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome'. AIDS is a serious condition in which the body's defences against some illnesses are broken down. This means that people with AIDS can get many different kinds of diseases which a healthy person's body would normally fight off quite easily.
The drugs have a lot to do with the spread of AIDS and that drugs and AIDS are interrelated in the spread and harm to humans. In people who abuse drugs, HIV transmission can occur when they share needles and other injection paraphernalia as flakes of cotton, and rinse water heaters not sterilized. However, these individuals are also at greater risk of HIV infection simply by using drugs, regardless of whether they are administered with a needle and syringe or not. Research supported by NIDA and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism have shown that consumption of drugs and alcohol can interfere with the process and lead to risky sexual behaviors that put users at risk of contracting or transmitting HIV. Among the consequences of drug abuse include: Physiological and psychological disorders such as seizures, changes in heart rate, the deterioration of the central nervous system, hallucinations, paranoid tendencies, depression, etc.Deterioration and weakening of the will, deterioration of personal relationships, Baja performance at work or in the studio, Social and economic effects because the drug can be very expensive, leading the addict to devote all its resources to maintain consumption.
AIDS can be transmitted in many ways, but equally can be avoided by that here are some ways to prevent the spread of the virus already mentioned HIV / AIDS.
Early detection of HIV can help prevent its transmission. The research indicates that routine tests to detect HIV in health care between populations with prevalence rate as low as 1 percent, are a very viable from an economic point of view, testing other diseases such as breast cancer and high blood pressure. These findings suggest that testing for HIV can reduce medical costs by preventing high-risk practices and decreasing virus transmission.
The sex safer is a good option; safer sex also means using a condom during sexual intercourse. Using a condom is not absolutely safe as condoms can break, but condoms can be effective if they are used correctly. To find out more about this, see our condoms page.
Oral sex (one person kissing, licking or sucking the sexual areas of another person) does carry some risk of infection. If a person sucks the penis of an infected man, for example, infected fluid could get into the mouth. The virus could then get into the blood if you have bleeding gums or tiny sores somewhere in the mouth. The same is true if infected sexual fluids from a woman get into the mouth of her partner. But infection from oral sex alone seems to be very rare. Research has shown that a cumulative total of HIV prevention, which includes treatments for drug abuse, community outreach, testing and counseling for HIV and other infections in addition to treatment for HIV, is the most effective in reducing the risk of infections transmitted by blood.
The combination of behavioral and pharmacological treatments for drug abuse has a proven impact on risk behaviors for HIV and the incidence of HIV infection. For example, recent research has shown that when combined with behavioral therapies methadone treatment, about half of the participants who reported injecting drugs at the start of the study, reported that they no longer did so at the end of the study. Also, the exit survey, more than 90 percent of all participants reported that they did not share needles, while these findings show great promise for achieving reductions in risk behaviors for HIV, now studies are needed to improve the long-term effectiveness of these interventions.

Within the means of transmission of the disease, the biggest today is related to the conduct of drug abuse. Use or share non-sterile needles, cotton balls, water rinsing and spoons or containers for cooking drugs, such as those used to inject heroin, cocaine and other drugs, leaves the addict with a higher risk of contracting or transmitting HIV. On the other hand, simply taking drugs, there is more risk of contracting the disease, as there are studies showing that the use of drugs and alcohol interferes in the trial of the person about their sexual behavior or other risky activity, making them candidates to have sex without taking appropriate preventive measures, raising the risk of contracting HIV from infected sex partners. In its relationship with the world of AIDS drugs, you can highlight certain data: Spain is the European country with largest number of AIDS cases per year. More than ¾ of AIDS cases in the year 99 have direct or indirect relationship with the consumption of intravenous drugs, being higher in men than in women. Over 60% of cases of women infected by heterosexual transmission, were unprotected by maintaining relationships with people who injected or had injected some kind of drug. Since the beginning of the HIV / AIDS epidemic until December 31, 1999, have been registered in the National Registry of AIDS cases, 31,027 deaths from AIDS patients, of whom approximately 64% in people addicted to drugs injectors.
There is no cure for HIV. HIV is a virus, and no cure has been found for any type of virus. Recently, doctors have been able to control the virus once a person is infected, which means that a person with HIV can stay healthy for longer, but they have not managed to get rid of the virus in the body completely.
America’s HIV prevention strategic plan.
At the end of 2007, an estimated 33 million people were living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. This number includes men, women and children of all ethnic and social backgrounds. Virtually every country in the world has been affected.

At the end of 2007, an estimated 33 million people were living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. This number includes men, women and children of all ethnic and social backgrounds. Virtually every country in the world has been affected.
Pictures of people infected with HIV:

HIV positive couple in South Africa.

HIV positive man with his mother.

AIDS orphans in zambia.

Finally, the drugs have a relationship with AIDS, to spread and infect the virus to drug addicts and others, causing many problems, in addition to increasing the number of infected from this pandemic in the world.

Reporter number #2: What should you know about drugs and aids?
My Opinion

AIDS is a virus that lives and multiplies primarily in white blood cells, affecting the immune system and eventually cause a depletion in these cells, the owner of this virus may appear and feel good for years without knowing who is infected, however this individual becomes more prone to infections and diseases more common, which can lead to death. I think that drugs have a lot to do with the spread of HIV, since the use of needles or syringes or flakes of cotton and boiled water not sterilized, can cause a person to be infected, although the person who consumes drugs is prone to infection, although this person will injected with a syringe or not.
The relationship between the world of drugs to HIV / AIDS has a great connection in the spread of the virus, increasing deaths and people infected with the disease, but AIDS does not destroy your dreams and visions for the future, there is much for which to live and if you have AIDS, must learn and find out everything you can, in addition to say before it’s too late.