World AIDS Day

December 1 is World AIDS Day. It is the day where people and organizations around the world join hands in bringing attention to AIDS.

I am joining the many bloggers around the world in creating awareness about the disease, and being a part of Bloggers Unite for World AIDS Day.

In the Philippines, there have been 3,000 documented cases of people afflicted with the disease and the study reported that the figure can go as high as 8,000 to include the undocumented cases. Worldwide, about 33 million people are infected with the dreaded disease.

It is important to note that in the United States half of the documented cases of people with AIDS belong to the age group between 13 to 24 years old.

According to the website worldaidscampaign.org, most of the youth today have not heard a word about AIDS putting them at high risk of getting the disease.

AIDS or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome is an illness that impairs the immune system of the body. A simple infection that a healthy body can overcome becomes a full blown disease because the body can no longer protect itself from diseases. AIDS is cause by the virus - HIV or the Human Immunodeficiency Virus.

AIDS is a sexually transmitted disease and can also spread through blood contact or through mother to baby during pregnancy and childbirth.

You can get AIDS through:

Having sex (anal, oral and vaginal contact) with someone with HIV.
Sharing hypodermic needle with someone with HIV ( common to those people who abuse drugs using syringes)
Being transfused with blood infected with HIV.

Based on what I’ve read from Wikipedia, majority of people with AIDS acquired it through having unprotected sexual contact between persons. Using latex condoms during sexual intercourse reduces the risk of getting infected with AIDS.

You can’t get AIDS:

1. through casual contact like shaking hands,kissing or hugging someone with AIDS
2. Swimming in a public pool
3. Sharing food and utensils
4. Donating blood
5. When someone sneeze or cough, because it is not spread through air droplets
6. Through mosquito and other insect bites

To this date, there is no known treatment or vaccination against AIDS. Let us pray that a cure for this fatal disease will be discovered soon.