Today is World AIDS Day 2016, and this year’s theme is ‘HIV Stigma: Not Retro, Just Wrong’.
HIV stands for human immunodeficiency virus. If left untreated, HIV can lead to the disease AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome). Globally, an estimated 36.7 million people were living with HIV in 2015, and 1.8 million of these were children.
World AIDS Day is held on the 1st December each year and is an opportunity for people worldwide to unite in the fight against HIV, show their support for people living with HIV and to commemorate people who have died. World AIDS Day was the first ever global health day, held for the first time in 1988.
This year’s World AIDS Day focuses on ending the stigma around HIV and AIDS. The National AIDS Trust is encouraging people to share a funny or embarrassing picture of you from the 80s or 90s, to show that although some retro styles have come back in to fashion some things should be left in the past, including HIV stigma. Pictures are being shared using the hashtag #HIVNotRetro.
You can find out more about World AIDS Day 2016 by visiting http://www.worldaidsday.org/. Activities from around the world are also being shared on social media using the hashtag #WorldAIDSDay.
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