Red Cross Blogs

World AIDS Day: how prejudiced are you?

By Sarah Oughton
December 1, 2009 at 12:28 pm

Everybody’s at it today, from Carla Bruni-Sarkozy and Annie Lennox to South Africa’s president Jacob Zuma.

Yes everyone’s talking about AIDS. It’s a tough subject and usually people

don’t really like talking about it. Everyone thinks they know about AIDS and nobody thinks they’re prejudiced. But a recent Red Cross survey showed that reality is a little different.

Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is using this day to raise awareness about the plight of children who are HIV positive because the virus has been passed on from their mother.

And the Red Cross Movement is doing its bit to raise awareness of the facts about HIV, bust the myths and combat stigma and discrimination with a series of events taking place throughout the UK.

But the Red Cross also works all year round to help women in countries like South Africa, Uganda and Lesotho – where around 270,000 people are living with HIV and life expectancy has dropped to just 34 years. I find this statistic shocking. If I’d been born in Lesotho there’s a good chance I would have died last year.

If you want to find out more about the work we’re doing abroad then check out our website. And if you think you’re already pretty savvy when it comes to AIDS then see how you can do on our HIV quiz.

But first, if you haven’t done so already watch Konnie Huq getting hot and steamy on this video – and don’t forget to share the link with your friends.

Now tell me honestly – how would you feel about kissing someone with HIV?

Image © Billy Cometti

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Tags: AIDS, Annie Lennox, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, HIV, Jacob Zuma, Konnie Huq, World AIDS Day

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 1st, 2009 at 12:28 pm and is filed under Health and social care, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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