Sex without a condom is more enjoyable and worth it. True or false? Sharing a needle when no others are available is quite fine. True or false? These are questions that each of us has to be aware of and prepared to answer at a moments notice. However, if they are not questions that we think about on a regular basis and are honest about then in the heat of the moment we’re more likely to make a decision that can have fatal results.
National Latino AIDS Awareness Day is on October 15 and December 1 is World HIV/ AIDS Day. There will be plenty of programs dedicated to addressing the problems that still exist, raising awareness about behavior that can keep you safe from contracting the disease and commemorating those who have passed.
Surprisingly, as Elizabeth Pisani elaborates in her book The Wisdom of Whores: Bureaucrats, Brothels and the Business of AIDS large amounts of money are dedicated to fighting this disease worldwide. In spite of continuous awareness and funding, infection rates keep rising. How is it that we have the knowledge and the resources to prevent the spread of this disease and we are not doing everything that we can? Factors that affect the way people view HIV/ AIDS are religious beliefs.
Pisani explores how we engage in risky behavior that gives the disease easy access to our bloodstream. Should it really take the infection or death of someone close to us to wake us up? Granted some people are more at risk of contracting HIV/ AIDS than others, but that should not stop us reaching out to the community.
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2007 Latinos in the U.S. accounted for 19 percent of people living with AIDS,
making us the third highest affected demographic after African Americans and Native Hawaiians/ Pacific Islanders. In Latin America more than 2 million people are living with the disease.
Sex can be a touchy subject, but we should not be afraid to address and discuss the behaviors that lead to the spread of STIs and HIV/AIDS. Honesty and openness are the only ways to encourage people to reconsider their actions and to keep sex enjoyable and safe. HIV tests are free as are many STI tests. Do you know your status?
Are you talking about HIV/ AIDS?
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About Nicolle Morales Kern
Sex itself is a touchy subject. HIV/AIDS is a whole other can of worms. There’s such a stigma from being infected with the virus that honest conversations are turned taboo. People in our community not only seem embarrassed to talk about it, but even afraid to do so.
Great post…
Thank you.
Sometimes I think people think that if they don’t talk about an issue that it doesn’t exist.
ET AL, .Please bear with me, I had to break this posting into icepes because it was refusing to go through. .LOLBut seriously, there are so many numbers being thrown around that if you try to reconcile them they just exonerate Mbeki other than crucify him. But I guess that if you are going to just read the headline and the numbers without testing them against things like the population register, historical mortality rate, timelines for certain interventions (ARV) etc – you are only going to come to a populist conclusion.You see, no one has ever denied that South Africans (especially the young) are indeed dying at a rate that is abnormal. The issue has always been what the best way to respond to that is and that response had to be based on the causation for the deaths of South Africans. I understand that the minister is a qualified GP and not a mathematician but common sense is common sense and that should never escape him. Now the minister in his populist posture seems to miss one very key element to his own data. According to the article the minister is saying that in 1997 we had approximately 300 000 deaths. Then nothing, on the article, is said about what the death rate in the subsequent 10 years. We are then told that in 2007 we had 573 408. Now, if my math does not abandon me, that is an average of 6.7 percent growth in the mortality rate per year, between 1997 to 2007.Take a look at TABLE 2.2 on PAGE 5 of the Stats SA report that I assume the minister is quoting (REFERENCE 1)Subsequently, Stats SA did release an interesting report about what happened between 2006 and 2007. Guess what! the number of deaths decreased and that is validated by the minister’s own figures (REFERENCE 2)This figure is substantiated by the fact that between 2002 and 2006, the growth in our mortality rate was actually decreasing.Now the minister informs us that 756,062 South Africans died in 2008. That is a jump of 24 percent. Now under what circumstances would a shrinking mortality rate suddenly increase by over 24 percent? This jump is too high and too inconsistent with the infection rate itself.What is a FACT is that between 2002 and 2007 our nation was consistently beginning to live longer.What is a FACT is that that increase, in people dying, has coincided with the roll out of ARV’s. Even the so called ‘Harvard report’ puts a 2005 cut of date on the lack of ARV’s. For me there are three plausible conclusions here:1. The figures quoted by the minister are incorrect – and that I doubt2. ARV’s are not putting a dent on our mortality rate – easy way out3. As more people are taking ARV’s, more people are dying – closer to the truthThe minister needs to sit down and really think his figures and their meaning through.COULD ANYONE WHO WANTS TO WRITE A DISPUTING RESPONSE TO THIS, PLEASE RESPOND WITH FIGURES AND NOT ILL-CONSTRUCTED EMBELLISHMENTS.