World AIDS Day

Today, 1st Dec, is World AIDS Day. AIDS is now considered a pandemic. According to UNAIDS estimates, there are now 33.4 million people living with HIV, including 2.1 million children. During 2008 some 2.7 million people became newly infected with the virus and an estimated 2 million people died from AIDS. Around half of all people who become infected with HIV do so before they are 25 and are killed by AIDS before they are 35.

The late Michael Jackson was one of the first entertainers to enlist in the fight against AIDS/HIV. His 1993 song, Gone Too Soon, was dedicated to Ryan White, an American teenager from Indiana who was infected with HIV from a contaminated blood treatment. Michael performed this song at Bill Clinton’s first inauguration ball where he highlighted the importance of supporting research for a cure to this disease.

And to mark World AIDS Day, I’ve join other local bloggers in “shutting down” our blog for today. The idea behind this is to make people sit up and take notice of things in life that they take for granted. HIV/AIDS can happen to anyone if we’re not aware or careful, and when it does, it can have a big impact on many of the routine things that we do on a daily basis.

If you are interested, join me by adding the codes on your blog for today.

Eeeeerrrr…. wait a minute. If I shut down my blog today, you won’t be able to read this blog entry until I remove the codes tomorrow. If so, how are you going to get the message and add the codes on your blog? Hmmmm….. unless you are reading from a RSS reader.