December 1st declared as “World Aids Day” Since 1988 by WHO remembering lost lives & pledge to fight Aids.

AIDS (Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome ) is caused by the HIV virus (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), which attacks the immunity power of an individual against diseases rendering them totally defenceless even against the most common disease.

HIV has claimed 36.3 million lives as of July 17th, 2021; as per statistics available with the World Health Organization (WHO), the people living with the disease till the end of the year 2020 were approximately around 37.7 million indicating that HIV induced AIDS is the main challenge faced by the Public Health Departments around the globe.

December 1st was declared as “World Aids Day” by WHO to remember the countless lives lost to the disease, thereby strengthening our pledge to fight constantly against Aids on a coordinated global level; also, people at present living with the disease take the chance to organize meets to come together & show support for the cause.

Support is needed against the stigma associated with the disease, which leads to rejection, discrimination & ostracism of the individual suffering from Aids at the hands of other ordinary healthy society people.

Society as a whole should be educated on the symptoms, transmission modes of Aids & the medication needed to be undergone are the main reasons World Aids Day is organized for the entire society.

Symptoms of Aids differ in each individual; people infected with HIV are infectious prone in the first few months following their own infection from HIV. They even do not realize that they have fallen into the virus until later.

Infected People might develop swollen lymph nodes, suffer from weight loss, be feverish, diarrhea & cough when their immune system gets impaired by the HIV, serious illnesses like tuberculosis (TB), Cryptococcal Meningitis, Bacterial infections, also Kaposi’s & malignancies of lymphomas can be acquired if treatment is not done.

Transmission of the disease occurs basically from the body fluids like blood, semen, breast milk & vaginal secretions from an infected person to a healthy individual.

Mostly in cases like – from a pregnant lady to her unborn child, people having unprotected sex with other people than their own partner, using same needles for injections contaminated by an infected person, blood transfusions from the infected to the healthy person.

HIV can be treated with ARV ( Anti Retro Viral) drugs, though these drugs do not cure AIDS, but slow the viral infection allowing the body’s immune system to fight off other Malignancies & infections.

WHO, since 2016, has declared that all living people with HIV infection will be provided Antiretroviral therapy, including children & breastfeeding women, for their entire lifetime.