January & February...AIDS

I realize that I am writing late but give me a break I started this blog 2 months after I had started becoming informed.

...AIDS... A mega huge killer that has spread to every continent, every race, every age, every gender, every sexual orientation. It is huge. And it is not alright. It is devastating our world and will forever have an impact. It is known as the largest humanitarian crisis of our time.

Here are some statistics:
38 million people in the world are infected, 25 million in Africa (Africa only makes up 10% of the world's population).
Currently there are 12 million orphans in Africa that are orphaned due to AIDS.
It is predicted that by the end of 2010 there will be 20 million orphans in Africa because of AIDS. ( I am not ok with that)

AIDS/HIV is a virus that is spread through blood, typically through sexual contact, needles, or from mother to child during birth or through breastfeeding. So basically these mothers who do not know that they have the virus, by breastfeeding their child are basically writing a death sentence for their child. They are basically doing the motherly thing, but instead are killing their child.

With AIDS being spread through sexual contact, most people, at least in America, associate it with gay men. Which is so sad. And the truth is that many other people have the virus. And what is even sadder is that in many places in Africa, the stigma of the virus is so harsh that many people don't want to know if they have it or get treated for it because of how others will treat them. It looks to others as if they are promiscuous, which yes sometimes is the case, but sometimes that is not the case. What about those who were raped? Those who married someone who had the virus? What about those who were born with it because their mother had it? Those people aren't being promiscuous, but are they treated fairly? No. And even if they were, what would the chances be that they would be able to afford the antiretroviral vaccine to treat their symptoms? The chances are slim to none. What would you choose, pay a lot of money for a vaccine and medical treatment or put food on the table for your kids? I think I would decide food. It just isn't fair. I can't even imagine.

All these things are awful. And if we don't do something about this, what will happen? I really don't know.

However there is a little bit of good news in all of this. Over the past decade the spread of AIDS in Uganda alone has decreased 10 percent. That is huge! And do you know the reason why? Because of the promotion of abstinence, safe sex and staying true in your marriage. A program was implemented there called the ABC program, standing for Abstinence, Being Faithful in marriage, and Contraceptives. Teaching this to people and teaching them about the virus has reduced this countries death rate by a huge amount. Wow, doesn't that sound simple enough? (Simple as ABC, literally). This program has been implemented in other countries as well and has also been very effective. But not effective enough, the spread of AIDS is still growing faster than the prevention programs.

Ok I get it, that is a lot of information. You might need to take a minute to digest all of that. There is much more to come about this in further days I promise.

But before I write more, let these things sink in a little bit. Statistics are hard to relate to, but try to think about them a little bit and let it resonate, don't just let them slip away because these are real people, whether we actually know them or not.