World AIDS Day 2010 - share the responsibility

It's the time of the year again in which concerned members of the society take a stand and choose to fight against AIDS and do all they can to curb the spreading of AIDS and fight on behalf of those suffering from AIDS for their treatments and medications as well as speaking up against any from of discrimination directed towards the sufferers.

Still continuing with last year's theme of 'Universal access and human rights', the UNAIDS is now pushing for what they call a 'Prevention Revolution' to put a stop to the spreading epidemic. According to the press release, statistics in 2009 showed that the estimated number of people newly-infected with HIV was 20% lower than the number back in 1999. Statistic also showed that the number of people who died from AIDS-related illnesses was almost one-fifth lower than the number from 2004 apart from an increase in the number of estimated people living with HIV as compared to the number in 2008. All these numbers bear every marking of successful therapy that has helped many sufferers to control the progress of the syndrome (it's acquired immune deficiency SYNDROME, not DISEASE!).

Having said that, UNAIDS is still pushing for greater access because despite the positive numbers, there are two new cases of AIDS infection for every one person having an access to the treatment thus the need for Prevention Revolution. Now we can all leave this big task to world organisations and NGOs and healthcare professionals but nothing works more effective than spreading awareness through the traditional method of word-of-mouth. Just like how bad news spreads faster by people gossiping about it, informative and benificial news could be well disseminated if we all start talking and discussing about it. And now with Twitter and Facebook and god knows many other social network platforms, we can all share the responsibility and do our parts in spreading the awareness.

If you're on Twitter, you can help UNAIDS by tweeting about the day and its significance. You can help spread the finding of UNAIDS report on AIDS to show the critical need for a Prevention Revolution. You can find the numbers on UNAIDS official homepage but it wold be easier if you guys just go to its Facebook page where they've prepared the tweets and all you have to do is to copy-and-paste. Follow the Twitter hashtag #PreventionRevolution for easy retweeting. You guys can also change your Facebook profile picture to a photo of a red ribbon (like the one above) and those with blogs should write about the day. You guys can also make a real red ribbon and don it on the t-shirt or top you're wearing. The whole idea is about making people in the public to become aware of the issues, to make them curious and wonder, and get them talking and discussing for that is the only way we can all learn about the magnitude of the issue and how we can all curb it.

So yeah, share the responsibility and do your bit!

Happy World AIDS Day 2010.