World AIDS day 2008

[paddyfool]

Today, December 1st, is World AIDS day.

The current situation of the epidemic: An estimated 33 million people had HIV in 2007, with 2.7 million new infections and 2.0 million AIDS deaths, according to the 2008 UNAIDS report on the global AIDS epidemic (http://www.unaids.org/en/KnowledgeCentre/HIVData/GlobalReport/2008/2008_Global_report.asp). Preventative and therapeutic interventions are being rolled out with increasing success - thus far, about 3 million people are on ARVs, for instance, albeit unsteadily in many places (Indonesia (http://insideindonesia.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1150&Itemid=47), for instance). However, the epidemic seems to be stabilising at an unacceptably high level, rather than falling, and there is precious little help of a breakthrough in the way of a cure or a vaccine.

So... be safe (try not to join the 0.6% of adults in the USA, or 0.2% of adults in the UK, who are HIV+), get tested if you think you're at risk, and show support. Please.

[ghost_warlock]

A very close friend of mine found out she was HIV+ while we were in college.

Those...were some of the most heartwrenching days of my life. When I think about it, words fail me.

[Quinsar]

My uncle died of Aids...
But, that was when I was five, and I didn't really know him...
But, it was my first expirience with death, and I bawled my eyes off for a few hours...

[SilverSheriff]

(I apologize if this falls into politics)

I personally believe that if we had more safe-sex programs and the appropriate protection dispensers in each school we wouldn't have such a problem. Making people more aware of the side effects of Unsafe sex would make a great change. using shock tactics such as telling students how these victims die would make them think again before they skipped on the rubbers.

[ghost_warlock]

(I apologize if this falls into politics)

I personally believe that if we had more safe-sex programs and the appropriate protection dispensers in each school we wouldn't have such a problem. Making people more aware of the side effects of Unsafe sex would make a great change. using shock tactics such as telling students how these victims die would make them think again before they skipped on the rubbers.

Statistically speaking, 'shock'/scare tactics don't really work well to prevent students from taking risky behavior, such as unsafe sex, because many teenagers have a sense of personal invincibility: "Oh, that won't happen to me."

Non-judgemental, confidential, readily available, and actually informative sexual education appears to be much more effective than scare tactics/abstinance-only programs at preventing teenage STD infections (and pregnancy). Too bad programs like these are expensive, time-consuming, and constantly being attacked for "encouraging" teens to experiment, sexually. As if teens need any encouragement to experiment sexually... :smallsigh: Or, they are attacked for making sex "consequence free;" as if such a thing were possible, considering all of the emotional baggage sexual activity typically involves.

If you think about it, though, it makes sense. Would you rather have someone rant about/focus on how scary and horrible catching a disease can be, or would you rather have them detail the routes of infection, symptoms of the disease, and methods to prevent infection?

[SilverSheriff]

Would you rather have someone rant about/focus on how scary and horrible catching a disease can be, or would you rather have them detail the routes of infection, symptoms of the disease, and methods to prevent infection?

Option B with a peppering of option A.

Still people should know that their are more risks to sex then being a passenger in an Airplane (although Airplane travel is getting a lot more risky these days).

[FdL]

Well, it's the year 2008. So kids, you have a brain, you have internet, all the information in the world is at the tip of your fingers. Do the math, there's only one thing that's right to do: if you're gonna do it, use protection. There's no excuse not to.

And even though in this world there's still some people who want to hide information from you because "sex is bad", you can do better than that.

[Headless_Ninja]

Would like to show my support for those affected by this terrible disease. It breaks my heart that something like this can have been so poorly handled (even if it has been through necessity), can still destroy so many lives. More selfishly, it's ability to do so just scares me. Things like this are why I believe that medical science and similar fields are the most important research areas possible. If we can't stop it, we need to contain it.

[DraPrime]

Well, it's the year 2008. So kids, you have a brain, you have internet, all the information in the world is at the tip of your fingers. Do the math, there's only one thing that's right to do: if you're gonna do it, use protection. There's no excuse not to.

And even though in this world there's still some people who want to hide information from you because "sex is bad", you can do better than that.

Of course, this wouldn't be anywhere near as much of a problem if not only did we use protection more, but if some of us could restrain how often we get in someone's pants.

[Firestar27]

Of course, this wouldn't be anywhere near as much of a problem if not only did we use protection more, but if some of us could restrain how often we get in someone's pants.

We're nerds. It isn't hard for us to restrain. Others often succeed at restraining us.


AIDS is a horrible disease. I think there are some people out there who say that if someone got AIDS, they deserved for practicing unsafe sex. Those people are horrible without any sympathy. We need to find a cure, and quickly.

[paddyfool]

Of course, this wouldn't be anywhere near as much of a problem if not only did we use protection more, but if some of us could restrain how often we get in someone's pants.

Unsafe sex is indeed a major driver of this problem, and of others (~80 million unwanted pregnancies and ~340 million curable sexually transmitted infections worldwide each year). However, blaming the victim really isn't likely to help, and behaviour change interventions have struggled to have much success. On the downside, abstinence campaigns really haven't worked; scare campaigns like the "tombstone" campaign have had only very temporary success, and carry over less now that there are ARVs available to keep people more or less healthy; and condoms are all too often set aside after the first few times any given couple spend together. On the brighter side, partner-reduction campaigns to cut down on concurrency, and persuade people with multiple concurrent sexual partners to at least be careful, have sometimes seen some success, e.g. in Uganda.

Meanwhile, the technical side has seen similar ups and downs. Anti-retroviral therapy is a particularly complex story. These drugs have been particularly useful for restoring health to HIV+ people, and for prevention-of-mother-to-child transmission, while also havingsome utility for post-exposure prophylaxis as well as making people who take them less infectious. However, at the same time, since a person on treatment lives longer and gets much of their health back, they then have much longer to pass it on if they aren't careful; also, as I said above, the fact that you can treat, if not cure, this disease seems to have made many communities a tad less cautious. Meanwhile, vaccines, microbicides and cures have pretty much totally failed so far, and targetting other STIs that facilitate HIV transmission hasn't done very much, but we have had one surprise success: circumcision, it seems, cuts the risk of a man getting HIV by about 50% (even though he's actually at increased risk for the first month after the op), and this is being increasingly rolled out.

Ig. Apologies for the wall of text; as you may have guessed, this is kind of my area of expertise.

[dish]

There are also socio-economic and cultural factors to consider. Different groups of people are at different levels of risk in various countries.

In the UK, I believe, the communities most at risk are the male homosexual population and the African-British population. In China a huge number of peasant farmers were infected in Hebei province due to unsantitary practices in blood donation schemes. (Unfortunately, that has become a major political issue, so I won't go into more details here.)

[paddyfool]

In the UK, I believe, the communities most at risk are the male homosexual population and the African-British population.

You'd be right there - in each of those demographics, the national prevalence is at 5%, compared to 0.2% in the population as a whole (incidentally, 0.2%, while not sounding like very much, is still an estimated 80,000 people (http://www.hpa.org.uk/web/HPAweb&HPAwebStandard/HPAweb_C/1227515299695)). Of whom more one in four don't know their status...


In China a huge number of peasant farmers were infected in Hebei province due to unsantitary practices in blood donation schemes.

Indeed... I've heard estimates of everything from 50,000 to 1 million infections caused by that particular debacle.

Another takeaway message we shouldn't ignore, however, is how people in the hardest hit circumstances keep going (http://www.guardian.co.uk/journalismcompetition/the.aids.church).