December First Is World AIDS Day
With today being World AIDS Day, awareness events are being held all over the globe to bring awareness to the disease that kills millions of people annually.
Treatment when it comes to the disease has come a long way since it was first recognized more than 25 years ago, but to date a full proof cure has not been discovered.
“AIDS in America is a black disease . . . about half of the just over 1 million Americans living with HIV or AIDS are black,” says Phill Wilson, Executive Director of the Black AIDS Institute.
According to UNAIDS estimates, more than 33 million people worldwide are living with either HIV, or the full AIDS virus.
They say that in 2007, more than 2.5 million new cases were reported.
World AIDS Day was first held in 1988, and has been an annual fixture in the fight against the disease ever since.
Despite the record number of people living with AIDS, part of the reason that the number is so high is due to people who are infected with the virus living much longer due to better drugs that are now available.
Because of this fact, over time the World Health Organization predicts a decline in the number of people living with the virus.