I am a Living with HIV Champion now and by saying that I mean that I have pledged to spread awareness about HIV and AIDS in whichever way possible for the rest of my life. This is an initiative of the Standard Chartered Bank to spread awareness about HIV and AIDS in the world. They are a bank and how often have you seen banks of such huge status and spread in the world getting involved in activities for the social benefit. At least I haven’t come across any. Besides that they are not doing this for “publicity” and I say this because they do not advertise about this program in any way, on the contrary they’ve started a website www.vir.us which has all the facts and figures related to HIV in 8 languages, which shows that they want to reach out to as large an audience as possible. I really appreciate what they’re doing and the different ways and means that they’re adopting for this purpose. They have a “train the trainer” program where their employees, who are HIV Champions, educate college students about HIV/AIDS who then pledge to educate a larger number.
HIV is a virus for which there is no cure as of now, and hence the only way in which its spread can be prevented is through change in our lifestyle. We all know that this disease has no cure and therefore live under the impression that HIV means you’re going to die. This is of course not true, HIV is a virus (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) which can lead to AIDS if it is not treated, and once you have AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) you can die within 2 years without treatment. Yes, there is a treatment for AIDS. But this treatment only ensures that the virus does not multiply in your body but becomes dormant. The medication has to be continued for the entire life by an HIV+ person. A person who is HIV+ may never have AIDS if he maintains a healthy lifestyle along with the treatment.
HIV, once it enters our body, starts killing the white blood cells, these cells help in making our body immune to a lot of diseases. The virus also keeps multiplying in our body, and when the immunity of our body becomes so low that we contract diseases which a normal healthy person would never be exposed to, this implies that the person has AIDS.
The virus was first detected in Africa during late 19th century and AIDS is now a global pandemic. Facts say that 7400 new infections are detected each day and 34 million people are living HIV across the world. 2.3 million people in India are living with HIV.
A few more facts:
* TB is the leading cause of death among persons with HIV.
* HIV is among the leading causes of death worldwide and prime cause of death in sub-Sahara Africa.
* Most people with HIV are unaware that they are infected.
* Women represent half of all people living with HIV/AIDS.
* HIV is spread by sexual contact with an infected person, by sharing needles and/or syringes with someone who is infected, or, less commonly, through transfusions of infected blood or blood clotting factors.
* HIV is found in many body fluids including blood, semen, vaginal fluids and breast milk.
* HIV is not spread by mosquitoes or other biting insects.
Story behind the red ribbon
The red ribbon has been adopted from the yellow ribbons that were created for in honor of soldiers serving in the 1st Persian Gulf War. The ribbon is red in color due to its connection with love, passion, anger and valentine.
This post is an aberration from my normal posts only because I thought I should start contributing to this cause in every small way that I can. And since I am an HIV Champion now it is my moral obligation. Hope you gained something out of this post or at least got sensitized on the subject.
