World AIDS Day

Today is world AIDS day. 40 million people are living with the disease world wide. There are only 36 million people residing within Canada. More people have AIDS then live in this country. And its not getting any better. AIDS is increasing in every single region of the world. Including Canada. 58,000 people in this country are currently living with the virus. That's a 16% increase from 2002.

Since the virus was first discovered in 1981, it has claimed the lives of 25 million people. In 2005, 2.8 million people died & 4.1 million were newly infected.

With all of the information, funding & prevention out there it is hard to believe its still winning. But it is. Forget for a moment the images on the evening news. Forget the infection rates of sub Saharan Africa. Which can at times seem so remote & far away. We talk so much about countries like Africa & India. The struggle seems to become a battle "over there", and we forget that this country, like every other on this planet is in this fight. Another Canadian is infected with HIV every 2 hours. There's a chance that someone you know is being infected while you read this.

The fight is not just about India or Africa, even though their infection rates are the highest, so too are their populations. Taken in a per capita ratio, we are not so different. We are by no means immune.

The saddest thing is that AIDS & health organizations world wide estimate that millions more are infected & are completely unaware of it. The first step any of us can take toward prevention is to simply get tested.

For more information about AIDS & AIDS research/prevention www.amfar.org and www.joinred.com are great sites, as is www.theglobalfund.org

Educate yourself!

Get tested!

Take your head out of you ass!!

It is bad enough that people are dying of AIDS, but no one should die of ignorance.

-Elizabeth Taylor