World AIDS Day is held on December 1st every year since 1988. The day is being held to support the people who are living with AIDS and also to commemorate the people who have dies from this infection.
Globally 34 million people are living with AIDS and it is very important to create awareness among other people and also to spread the message across the nooks and corners of the World. Till now more than 35 million people have died from the virus, making it one of the most destructive pandemics in history.
World Aids Day is campaigned by World Health Organization (WHO) along with other global public health days’. The idea for World Aids Day was conceived by two public information officers for the Global Programme on Aids at the World Health Organisation, James Bunn and Thomas Netter, in 1987.
UNAIDS started organizing this day with several annual themes for betterment of the society. 2014’s theme for celebrating this day is ‘AIDS FREE GENERATION’.
The history of HIV and Aids in the US began in 1981, when the country recognized a new illness among a small number of gay men. Although it widely accepted that the origin of HIV lies in Africa, the US was the first country to bring the virus into the public consciousness.
AIDS and India
According to National AIDS Control Organization of India, 2.39 million people live with HIV/AIDS in India in 2008–09, a more recent investigation by the Million Death Study Collaborators in the British Medical Journal (2010) estimates the population to be between 1.4–1.6 million people.
The last decade has seen a 50% decline in the number of new HIV infections. According to more recent National AIDS Control Organisation data, India has demonstrated an overall reduction of 57 percent in estimated annual new HIV infections (among adult population) from 0.274 million in 2000 to 0.116 million in 2011, and the estimated number of people living with HIV was 2.08 million in 2011.
