I remember in the 80′s turning on the TV to scary ads telling people to wear a condom that AIDS was upon us.  Thank God for the ads, who knows how many people they may have saved.  In the years since then I have read various articles telling us everything from it being a “gay disease” to telling us heterosexual women were most at risk.  We’ve all read the effect this disease has had on people using intravenous drugs, the stats make for sobering reading no matter what angle you’re coming at them from.

People have taken it upon themselves over the years to buy red in order to do what they can to support those affected and all in all you got the impression around the place that people were being more careful than before.  However, the stigma around positive people remains something we have to correct as quickly as we can.

Do teenagers and young adults see AIDS as the problem our generation did?  I’m not so sure they do.  Everywhere you look you see ads for wearing a condom in case of an unwanted pregnancy but what about all the other things that can happen?  I’m not saying we should terrify young people into being afraid of sex but those scary ads did have an affect on us!

However, the spotlight has now moved to Africa where people are being affected on a monumental scale.  The devastation in Africa is real, as is the expense of the drugs needed and the lack of infrastructure makes it very difficult indeed to get to those affected.  The number of children born with and orphaned from this epidemic is staggering and it seems clear that something has to be done to slow down and eventually stop it’s spread.

However, sometimes I feel that the fact that the world focus is now on Africa people don’t seem to care as much!  Like it’s “over there” now so we can throw the odd few quid at it but not see it as we did once, as a global problem.

It seems that it’s a case of out of sight out of mind for a lot of people on this side of the world and sometimes I feel like, we in the gay community, are the only ones who still talk about this disease.  Do most people in this country even know it’s world AIDS day today?  Probably not.

Africa has so many issues to deal with, poverty, corruption, lack of basic food and water and on top of all that – AIDS.  We in the “western world” need to remember those affected in Africa and also remember that this epidemic is global and affects us all.

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