World AIDS Day, an Observation or a Celebration?

[Guest guest]

,

Thanks for expressing your concern regarding World AIDS Day. Before we start

another debate about whether the day to be observed or celebrated, we need to

know the history of World AIDS Day....World AIDS day was conceived and adopted

unanimously by 140 countries meeting at the World Summit of Ministers of

Health on AIDS, London in January 1988. The day was envisaged as an

opportunity for governments, national AIDS programs, non-governmental and

local organizations, as well as individuals everywhere, to demonstrate both

the importance they attached to the fight against AIDS and their solidarity

in this effort. Later that same year, the United Nations General Assembly at

its 38th plenary meeting on Oct. 27, 1988, on prevention and control of

acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), noted that the World Health

Organization had declared Dec. 1 World AIDS Day (WAD), and stressed the

importance of the appropriate observance of that occasion.

If at all what living with HIV and working in HIV has taught me is...it is a

day to be observed for the lives that are lost and day to celebrate those who

are living and a day to re-dedicate ourselves and call upon our individual

governments to marshall better policies and programs towards Care, prevention

and social equity...

This is my personal view about World AIDS Day....

Surendra

E-mail: surendra@...