By Jennie Herriot
World AIDS Day, the international day of action against HIV/AIDS, isn’t just being observed where AIDS kills millions every year. It’s being observed at UCLA because AIDS isn’t someone else’s problem – it’s ours too.
Today an estimated 40.3 million people are living with HIV/AIDS, 2.1 million of whom are children under the age of 15. Statistics may seem abstract, but each number represents someone’s daughter or son, sister or brother, friend or spouse.
More than 20 million people have died from AIDS since the disease was identified in 1981. That’s approximately 800 times the undergraduate population of UCLA. And worldwide, more than 6,000 people between the ages of 15 and 24 contract HIV each day.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that roughly 25 percent of the almost 1 million AIDS sufferers in the U.S. do not know that they have the disease. Sub-Saharan Africa – the focus of World AIDS Day at UCLA this year – is home to only 10 percent of the world’s population, yet 64 percent of the world’s HIV/AIDS victims, as well as over 80 percent of children who suffer from HIV/AIDS. And many of these people do not have access to anti-retroviral drugs, which could prolong and increase the quality of their lives.
The disease is entirely preventable. Unlike the Black Death or smallpox, the transmission of HIV can be stopped with the necessary knowledge and the right tools.
Though we as students can’t fly to Mozambique tomorrow and distribute medicine to AIDS patients, we can take action at UCLA or in nearby communities. So get tested, participate in Dance Marathon or make a donation to The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. Attend AIDS Walk Los Angeles, skate at RollAIDS or help Project Angel Food to deliver meals to AIDS victims.
Years from now, when your grandchildren ask you what you did to help the millions suffering from AIDS, you can truthfully say, “I did what I could. I made a difference.”
Herriot is the public relations chair for Dance Marathon and a former Daily Bruin news contributor.