World AIDS DayToday is World AIDS Day. It might not be a big day on your social calendar if you don't have AIDS or HIV infection but I want to call your attention to this topic today. Many in the USA have sort of forgotten about AIDS and consider it to be a thing of the past. I can assure you that HIV/AIDS is still around in our country as well as every other place on the planet inhabited by people! CDC (the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, GA) reports that in 2007, Approximately 33.2 million people worldwide were living with HIV and 2 million died from AIDS. CDC is now recommending that everyone in the USA between the ages of 13 - 64 get routinely tested for HIV. It might seem a bit too much but serological studies have shown that 25% of the people living with HIV infection do not know they are infected - and therefore they probably do not protect their sexual partners. Identifying and treating the infected is the first step in controlling a global sexually transmitted infection like this. I just returned on Tuesday from Campo Grande, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. I met with a doctor and an epidemiologist there from the state health department who told me that they are currently focusing their attention and education on the teen age group and those 50 - 65 years. These groups have seen the greatest increase in cases. Here is a billboard I saw in Campo Grande (in Portuguese) that calls attention to World AIDS Day.
Whether you lead a large company, work as a health professional, or attend high school, please find a way to support the global efforts to prevent HIV infection.
This entry was posted on December 1st, 2007 at 4:05 pm. RSS
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Education of the world's population is essential to putting an end to this ugly pandemic. It is going to take resources and continued work by individuals, private organizations and governments to accomplish this. Last week we sent 1400, HIV nanobug temporary tattoos to Liberia, West Africa and 20 nanobugs STI T-shirts to facilitate the education of children and adults about HIV infection and AIDS in after-school programs. (We are grateful to the North Omaha Kiwanis Club for paying for the shipping costs to make that possible). For World AIDS Day, CDC is releasing a critical new HIV testing and counseling tool, the Couples HIV Counseling and Testing (CHCT) Intervention and Training Curriculum. For more information, visit the CDC.gov 
