}

Saturday, December 01, 2012

World AIDS Day 2012

Each year I do a blog post for World AIDS Day. I feel it’s my duty to remember all those we’ve lost, because AIDS isn’t over yet.

According the United Nations, in 2011:

• An estimated 34 million people around the world were living with HIV.

• 2.5 million people became newly infected with HIV.

• 1.7 million people died from AIDS-related illnesses.

The USA’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that “at the end of 2009, an estimated 1,148,200 persons aged 13 and older were living with HIV infection in the United States, including 207,600 (18.1%) persons whose infections had not been diagnosed.”

Here in New Zealand, the Ministry of Health says that  3689 people have become infected with HIV since 1985. 81 of those infections happened this year (as of June this year).

I’ll keep posting something for World AIDS Day as long as I have a blog, and as long as this disease continues.

Because it’s not over yet.

Previous years’ blog posts:

World AIDS Day 2011
World AIDS Day 2010
World AIDS Day 2009
World AIDS Day 2008
World AIDS Day 2007
World AIDS Day 2006


A red ribbon is hung from the North Portico of the White House, Nov. 30, 2012, to mark World AIDS Day on Dec. 1. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)