World AIDS Day is held on the 1st of December each year. Bunn and Netter took the idea to Dr. Jonathan Mann, Director of the Global Programme on AIDS (now known as UNAIDS). Dr. Mann liked the concept, approved it, and agreed with the recommendation that the first observance of World AIDS Day should be on 1 December 1988.
Communities are a unique force behind the success of the HIV response Of the 37.9 million people living with HIV at the end of 2018, 79% received testing, 62% received treatment, and 53% had achieved suppression of the HIV virus with reduced risk of infecting others. Thousands of community health workers and members of the HIV and key population networks – many of whom are living with HIV or affected by the epidemic – contributed to this success. On World AIDS Day 2019, WHO is highlighting the difference these communities are making to end the HIV epidemic while drawing global attention to the need for their broader engagement in strengthening primary health care. Australia’s national theme for World AIDS Day 2019 is Every Journey Counts.
"As a Leader and Role Model I think it is Real Important to be Honest and to have Compassion." - Marcia Anita Hobbs, Ms Southern Hemisphere World 2019, Miss Australia La Femme Worldwide 2020.
From Wikipedia we Learn: 'AIDS is caused by a human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which originated in non-human primates in Central and West Africa. While various sub-groups of the virus acquired human infectivity at different times, the global pandemic had its origins in the emergence of one specific strain – HIV-1 subgroup M – in Léopoldville in the Belgian Congo (now Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo) in the 1920s.
Beatrice Hahn, Paul M. Sharp, and their colleagues proposed that "[the epidemic emergence of HIV] most likely reflects changes in population structure and behaviour in Africa during the 20th century and perhaps medical interventions that provided the opportunity for rapid human-to-human spread of the virus".[8] After the Scramble for Africa started in the 1880s, European colonial powers established cities, towns, and other colonial stations. A largely masculine labor force was hastily recruited to work in fluvial and sea ports, railways, other infrastructures, and in plantations. This disrupted traditional tribal values and favored casual sexual activity with an increased number of partners. In the nascent cities women felt relatively liberated from rural tribal rules[26] and many remained unmarried or divorced during long periods,[11][27] this being rare in African traditional societies.[28] This was accompanied by unprecedented increase in people's movements.
Michael Worobey and colleagues observed that the growth of cities probably played a role in the epidemic emergence of HIV, since the phylogenetic dating of the two older strains of HIV-1 (groups M and O), suggest that these viruses started to spread soon after the main Central African colonial cities were founded.'
I think Australia’s national theme for World AIDS Day 2019 - Every Journey Counts nails it for me. In 2020 living with HIV is living with a virus that can damage the immune system and make it difficult for the body to fight off simple infections. HIV is usually transmitted through anal or vaginal sex without a condom or other protection, or by sharing injecting equipment like needles and syringes mainly. There are many treatments but no currently available Cure. “Countdown to a Cure for AIDS” is a research initiative aimed at finding a broadly applicable cure for HIV by 2020. “Countdown to a Cure” is designed to intensify amfAR’s cure-focused HIV research program with plans to strategically invest $100 million in cure research over the next six years.
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