World AIDS Day - where did it come from?
Answers
HIV and AIDS were first discovered in the early eighties and soon after started causing panic among the US citizens. The first cases were mainly drug users and homosexual man. This fact alone pushed ostracisation and alienation to take place of empathy and awareness. To make it even worse, there was absolutely no cure for AIDS. Knowing that, in 1988, World Health Organisation made 1 December World AIDS Day in order to spread the word and raise awareness about prevention methods.
The idea was born a year before in the minds of James W. Bunn and Thomas Netter working with the Global Programme on AIDS, now known as UNAIDS. They presented their idea to the Programme’s director and after receiving the approval went on to contacting the US and global media.
Aside from the increasingly growing need for education, the biggest success of the Words AIDS Day is the struggle to change social perspective towards people who have AIDS. Fear and lack of knowledge, being the root of the problem, have been gradually shifting towards acceptation and understanding ever since the very beginning of the project in 1988. Supporting HIV/AIDS related research, educating people about prevention and the danger, keeping the world up to date on the issue are just a couple of the things done thanks to it.
World AIDS Day has become one of the most vocal health awareness events in the world. It’s interesting to notice that the popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI started the tradition to issue greeting messages to doctors and patient on 1 December. Also, since 2007 the White House has started commemorating this Day with a great, 28ft high, red AIDS ribbon put up on the building’s North Portico.
So, knowing what kind of day is today, take a minute to think about people suffering from AIDS, think how to help others stay safe and minimise the chance for getting sick and make sure not to forget that it’s nobody else’s but our responsibility, to make AIDS a tale of the past.
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The first World AIDS Day was taken place on 1 December 1988 under the theme 'Join the Worldwide Effort'. In South Africa, this day was first venerated in 1996 when the Department of Health organised a special event called the National World AIDS Day in Bloemfontein, Free State, and in Pretoria, Gauteng.
AIDS is highly communicable STI among the people. The first case was examined in 1981 at USA. AIDS is not disease itself. It is a distinct situation of our body in which WBC falls down and human immune system is destroyed.
It is caused by a retro virus which is called Human Immunodeficiency Virus. It is said as HIV in short.
There is not any proper treatment system against HIV/AIDS. The most effective method to cure them is their prevention.