World AIDS Day, December 1

When World AIDS Day comes around each year, we memorialise those lost to the infectious disease, but also recognise that for many it is no longer a death sentence, certainly not an imminent one. People live longer and fuller lives after diagnosis than ever before. It remains, however, the biggest cause of death for African teens and “the second biggest killer for adolescents around the world” (UNICEF). The theme of World AIDS Day 2015 is: “Getting to zero; End AIDS by 2030.”

In the UK, a Kissing Booth in Soho Square was today spreading the message that “Kissing Doesn’t Spread HIV. Ignorance Does.”

Whilst HIV and AIDS are improving in the UK, and we congratulate ourselves on survival rates, better education, and great use of celebrities, social media, schools etc to combat residual ignorance – meanwhile, it remains Africa’s biggest killer – not terrorism and conflict. Fear and denial of homosexuality or MSM (Men who have sex with men) does not help. LGBT equalities,  freedoms and awareness will help end the ignorance, but teaching safe sex and that heterosexual people, men and women, are the biggest at risk populations, is vital.

HIV Facts not Fear

• Around 100,000 people are living with HIV in the UK
• Only 1% of those in the UK with HIV died from AIDS
• Only 0.3% in the UK go on to develop AIDS from HIV
• UK people can expect a normal life expectancy with the disease
• Some 34 million worldwide are living with HIV
• Some 33 million worldwide since 1984 have died
• Sub-Saharan Africa has the most serious HIV and AIDS epidemic in the world with 25m people, 5% of all adults
• Over a million deaths annually from HIV in Africa
• Swaziland has the highest HIV prevalence of any country worldwide (27.4%)
• South Africa has the largest epidemic of any country with 5.9 million people living with HIV
• More women than men in Sub-Saharan Africa have HIV and each year 10% of women without HIV become infected especially 15-24 year olds
• 26 new HIV infections an hour for African teens aged 15-19 with girls making up 70% of those infected
• It is the biggest killer of young people in Africa, second biggest worldwide
• Poverty is a social determinant for HIV infection across all age groups in South Africa
• 20% of those in the US with HIV are women (84% from heterosexual sex)
• Over 125,000 women with HIV in the US have died since 1984
• Effective treatment makes you non-infectious
• HIV is mostly caught from unprotected sex with anyone (95%)
• It can be developed from intravenous drugs needle sharing (2%)
• It can also be caught in extremely rare unscreened circumstances from infected blood through transfusion, organ transplant, and mother to baby (0.5% chance)

More UK facts on the National AIDS Trust site, US women data from CDC. Other facts where linked.

On World Aids Day HIV we are right to remind people that AIDS is no longer a death sentence in the UK. It remains, however, Africa’s biggest killer, not terrorism or conflict. There is a global imbalance in health prospects, life expectancy, sex education, drugs funding, and attitudes to the value of people’s lives of different races and nationalities.