World AIDS Day
The World AIDS Day campaign is now in its twenty-first year. The overall theme for the 2009 Word AIDS Day, which was held on 1 December, was universal access and human rights, and this theme was interpreted in different ways by individual nations. In the United Kingdom, where >85,000 individuals are HIV positive, the campaign was entitled 'HIV: Reality' and focused on the reality of living with HIV today, using true accounts of how an HIV-positive diagnosis has affected the day-to-day lives of individuals. Worldwide, the latest data released by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the WHO revealed that, although there were ∼2.7 million new infections in 2008, this is a 17% reduction in new infections compared with the situation 8 years ago. Most progress has been made in sub-Saharan Africa, where there were 400,000 fewer new infections in 2008 than there were in 2001. Dr Margaret Chan, Director General of the WHO, commented, “We cannot let this momentum wane. Now is the time to redouble our efforts and save many more lives.” worldaidsday.org/UNAIDS
