Today is WORLD AIDS DAY. Here are some facts to consider on this day taken from the AMFAR.org website.
November 2006 - The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) estimates that there are now almost 40 million men, women, and children worldwide living with HIV and AIDS.
In 2006, an estimated 4.9 million people were newly infected with HIV, and close to 3 million people died, including over half a million children under the age of 15. HIV/AIDS is now the leading cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa. Worldwide, it is the fourth-biggest killer. There are now 15 million AIDS orphans in the world.
Sub-Saharan Africa remains the epicenter of the pandemic, with 24.7 million people living with HIV/AIDS—60 percent of the world total. If current trends remain unchanged, there will be more than 40 million children orphaned by AIDS in Africa by 2010. 
The steepest increases in HIV are occurring in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where 1.7 million people were living with HIV in 2006. This figure represents a twentyfold increase in HIV infection in less than ten years. AIDS claimed 84,000 lives in Eastern Europe and Central Asia in 2006. Some 270,000 people were newly infected with HIV in the past year, and almost one third of them were people aged 15-24.
UNAIDS estimates there are now at least 8.6 million people living with HIV/AIDS in the Asia and Pacific region. With roughly 60 percent of the world's population, even low rates of HIV incidence could translate to vast numbers of infected people, and this region is expected to be the next epicenter of the global pandemic.
Always be safe and give help when you can.
Today, Bristol-Myers Squibb, the pharmaceutical monolith that charges nearly $1,000 for a 30 day supply of one of its HIV/AIDS medications, is donating $1 to the National AIDS Fund for each person who simply visits their website and "virtually lights a candle." The tally is 1,008,174 now.
Please, please take a minute to "light a candle":
https://www.lighttounite.org/
This really will take just a second!!
Posted by: Ann-Whitney | December 8, 2006 at 01:49 PM