AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest global AIDS organization, commemorates World AIDS Day on December 1 through dozens of free HIV awareness and testing events throughout US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean, Eastern Europe, and Asia.
According to the World Health Organization, there are about 36.9 million people living with HIV/AIDS globally. In 2014, 2 million people became newly infected with HIV. In recent years, access to lifesaving antiretroviral therapy (ART) has expanded and now 15.8 million people around the world are receiving it. However, access to HIV testing and early diagnosis of the disease remain a critical gap in the global response to AIDS. WHO estimates that currently only about 53% of people with HIV know their status.
“In countries all around the world, AHF is working to expand access to prevention and treatment for HIV/AIDS so that we can reduce the gap in people who are positive and don’t know it,” said AHF President Michael Weinstein.
“We are now reaching over half-a-million men, women and children with lifesaving medical care in thirty-six countries around the world—a remarkable accomplishment that only a great team of patients, medical providers, staff and volunteers could have made possible.”
On World AIDS Day and the weeks preceding and following it, AHF is organizing a series of events in many of its 36 countries of operation, intended to raise the level of HIV awareness among the high risk groups and make convenient, free rapid testing and linkage to care available to communities around the world. While this year AHF is commemorating the World AIDS Day under the unifying slogan of “Dream Big – End it!”, the events in each country will be adapted to the local setting with a specific focus on the populations most impacted in the respective regions.
500,000 living with HIV globaly
“We are so proud to be caring for 500,000 people living with HIV around the world—more than half being in Africa alone. We have saved more than one million children from being orphaned. But there is so much more to do,” said AHF Chief of Global Advocacy and Policy Terri Ford.
“This World AIDS Day we chose to Dream Big – End it! With a massive scale-up of free HIV rapid testing and referral to care, we can find and treat the 21 million HIV positive people who are not accessing antiretroviral treatment. We also need to reinvigorate a mass availability and promotion of attractively packaged condoms. Condoms work—if available and used. If we stick with Test & Treat, we can and will stop AIDS.”