wear a red ribbon today

today is world AIDS day which carries the theme ‘stigma & discrimination: live and let live.’ wear a red ribbon today to signify your solidarity with victims of HIV/AIDS.

the AIDS awareness red ribbon
frighteningly, do you know that five people worldwide die of AIDS every minute of every day? the worst hit country is sub-saharan africa with an estimated 28 million people infected with the disease. this report came from UNICEF, who warns us of the ballooning crisis of AIDS and seeks aid for programmes to save vulnerable children from exploitation

by the end of 2001, more than 11 million african children under the age of 15 had been orphaned by AIDS, up from fewer than one million in 1990, the UNICEF report said. this is because in that country, most, if not all, of the couples had unprotected sex. this result in a mother or a father or both dying of AIDs, hence leaving children orphaned.

in our country although there was no updated record of the number of HIV/AIDS victims but health minister, chua jui meng said that malaysia has posted a sharp increases in HIV-AIDS patients, and he attribute most HIV/AIDS patients came from drugs addicts.

for those of you who read the star paper, you would have notice there were quite a number of articles/stories on HIV/AIDS yesterday. i posted here the link to the articles.

growing up in the shadow of aids
they are not alone
how the scheme works
financial lifeline
second chance at life
try this number

the last link is a helpline for KL AIDS support service. in penang we have the ‘community AIDS service, penang’ (CASP) whose office is in the caring society complex. their tel. no. is 229 9566. our catholic church, under the ‘penang office of human development (POHD), they are also running a AIDS/HIV help hesk. the hotline number to call for counseling is 2273190 during weekdays from 9.00am to 4.30pm. POHD is also seeking volunteers to help out in their AIDS/HIV help desk. please call POHD at tel. 2273405 or email pohd@tm.net.my if you are interested in volunteering your service.

coming back to star. on 27 dec, there was an article by marina mahathir, president of malaysian AIDS council, telling us on the myths of AIDS. (btw, the MAC website doesn’t seems to be working).

two government websites that i came across mentioning about AIDS are the ministry of women and family development, which give a list of helpline for HIV positive mothers (but of course can be for ALL HIV positive persons too), and the ministry of health secion on AIDS/STD.

some other interesting links for read-up on AIDS are as follows:

Tenaganita: Migrant workers vulnerable to HIV/Aids infection
Negative About HIV+
are you prejudiced?
AIDS online

it is sad to note that up to today, there are still people who are ignorant about AIDS, especially on how they spread. and some people still fear touching a HIV/AIDS patient. well, that is because they are ignorant on how the HIV virus is spread. all you have to remember is that there are four main ways of contracting the HIV virus…. that’s so easy… only 4 ways.

1. sex.
2. sharing needles
3. mother to baby
4. infected blood

elaboration on those 4 methods, plus other interesting info. can be found here.

please do read up on the many links i have here, esp. if you do not know much about AIDS. if you are well informed, than you won’t stigmatise and discriminate against AIDS victims. we should feel for them and oh, wear a red ribbon today to show your solidarity for them.

p/s – sorry for this post being long but the subject of AIDS is one of my passion, therefore i have lots to say and show!
pp/s – if any of the links not working, do let me know eh.