- Prevention of HIV
- HIV Treatment
- Social awareness and fight of HIV and AIDS
One of the major keys to HIV prevention is knowing how the disease is transmitted (discussed under transmission of HIV).
After understanding how the disease is transmitted, it is easier to avoid those circumstances that might compromise an individual’s health, including unsafe sexual interaction, transmission via other body fluids (example breast milk), use of contaminated materials such as injection needles and surgical equipments.
Preventing sexually transmitted HIV
Prevention of sexual transmission of the HIV/AIDS virus can easily be achieved through an approach, known as the ABC approach, as recommended by the UNAIDS program.
- Abstinence or delaying first sex
- Being safer by being faithful to one partner or by reducing the number of sexual partners
- Correct and consistent use of condoms for sexually active young people, couples in which one partner is HIV-positive, sex workers and their clients, and anyone engaging in sexual activity with partners who may have been at risk of HIV exposure
HIV testing
HIV testing is crucial in the fight against AIDS. The earlier the virus is discovered the better the chances of preventing development into full blown AIDS.
Resources can be obtained in the following links on how and where to get tested for HIV
Social awareness and fight of HIV and AIDS
An estimated 33.2 million people were living with HIV at the end of 2007. Someone with HIV infection is likely to become sick with AIDS within a few years, but if treated with antiretroviral (ARV) medication their life can be prolonged, often for a long time. ARV treatment has already dramatically cut the rate of AIDS diagnoses and deaths in Western countries where it has been provided since the 1990s.
As of December 2006, an estimated 7.1 million of the people living with HIV in low- and middle-income countries urgently needed this life-saving ARV medication. Of these only 2.015 million - barely one in four - were accessing the drugs.
Though shockingly small, this figure represents a great advance since 2003, when only 400,000 were receiving treatment. At the UN General Assembly Meeting on HIV/AIDS on September 22nd 2003, WHO, UNAIDS and the Global Fund declared the lack of access to HIV treatment a global health emergency.2
Since that meeting much progress has been made. Many countries have set targets for scaling-up treatment, and global organizations and funding bodies are rolling-out plans to increase ARV coverage.
Never before in the history of the epidemic has so much money been available to finance treatment and care for people with HIV, and never before have life-saving antiretroviral medicines been so cheaply and plentifully available. But still, every day, nearly 6,000 people are dying from a disease which can be treated, but which all too often isn't.