Get tested
I was watching an interesting CNN special this evenning "The End of AIDS". It made me think again of the HIV/AIDS epidemic across the world... I started surfing the net and I found the following facts:
- As of the end of this year, there are an estimated 36.1 million men, women and children living with HIV or Aids worldwide, and 21.8 million have already died from the disease.
- This year alone, there have been 5.3 million new infections worldwide, of which 3.8 million were in sub-Saharan Africa, and 780,000 in South and Southeast Asia. Children constitute over 10 percent of the global figure.
- By some estimates, 90 percent of HIV-positive individuals worldwide do not know they are infected.
- The disease is found mainly in two specific age groups: children under five, and adults aged between 20-40 years.
There are thousands of reports of different kinds and with focus on different regions. But I thought I'd share this resource. It is a country reportfrom the WHO: Epidemiological Fact Sheets on HIV/AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections.
So where to start? After reading these facts I'd say: Get tested!
posted by M at 4:51 PM
4 Comments:
when i was 18 i got a tattoo, and since then i've been getting tested every year. every time i go in, the path lab guy is amazed that i want to get tested for AIDS, the first question is always " why, do you feel sick?" the fact is you never know untill you really check. and it is always a bit unnerving for me when i'm waiting for that report. but even more scary is how few of the people i know, and in many cases have been with have done it. i agree: get tested
11:29 AM
It's nerve wrecking experience even if you do it every year :)
It takes 24 hours for most clinics in Chicago to give result and I used to spend the night drinking :)
11:53 AM
It was quite interesting how in this program the people from different foundations or infected people themselves were saying that we all think the desease is growing because those infected are simply irresponsible people, but no, they simply don't even know they are infected in the first place.
I must say I got tested as solidarity to a friend that had a suspicious boyfriend. My knees were shaking waiting there, even if I had no apparent reason to be nervous.
A woman that worked with my mother died of AIDS. She got it from her husband who was cheating on her. She never expected that could be her problem. She realized it once it was AIDS. So even if you don't have any reason to fear: Get tested.
12:33 PM
Yeah, I guess when it comes to HIV/AIDS, the "trust is good, but checking to make sure" rule applies. I can only speak for Geneva as I have been a volunteer in the sector of prevention of HIV/AIDS with the local AIDS foundation for fifteen months now, and here, fact is that infections within the age group of
+ 35 year old heterosexuals keep on increasing. Those generations aren't "used" to condoms as younger generations might be or have learned at schools here (again, I'm only talking about my city and country. And even here, much more prevention needs to be done even with the younger generations as it's been neglected again), so whenever spouses/partners cheat on each other, they're usually not being safe :-( As cheating already is such a taboo topic, imagine conveying the controversial message of "if you cheat, at least be safe", and that to a man/woman who has never used a condom or femidom before...
12:47 PM
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