World AIDS education day held

By Staff Reports

Published: December 3, 2008

STAFFORD — Monday marked the 20th Annual World AIDS Day. This year’s special focus was on reducing HIV/AIDS-related stigma and promoting HIV testing through blogs, virtual worlds and social networks.

More than 33 million people worldwide are estimated to be living with HIV, including 1 million in the United States. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease and Control Prevention’s latest national data, about 56,300 new HIV infections occurred in 2006, an increase from the previous estimate of 40,000 annual new HIV infections.

“Stigma continues to be one of the biggest obstacles to tackling this epidemic — many people still aren’t willing to talk about HIV or take an HIV test,” said Miguel Gomez, director of AIDS.gov.

In response, AIDS.gov developed the “Facing AIDS for World AIDS Day 2008” campaign. The campaign encouraged online social network members to upload pictures of themselves wearing red ribbons, the symbol of AIDS, and to post these photos and HIV testing information on their social network profiles on World AIDS Day.

The campaign aimed to reduce stigma and to promote HIV testing by showing the faces of real people who care about HIV/AIDS and were willing to share the message with their friends and family.

People can send a text message with their ZIP code to “KNOWIT” (566948) or can visit hivtest.org to find local HIV testing locations.

— Press release