By Beenish Hashwani

The first World AIDS Day was celebrated in 1988 after health ministers from various countries decided to have this as an annual event. World AIDS Day is not only about raising money, but also about increasing awareness, fighting prejudice and stigma and improving AIDS awareness. World AIDS Day is important in reminding people that HIV has not gone away, and that there are many things still to be done. Each year a new theme is created for the World AIDS Day and the theme for 2007 is “Stop AIDS; Keep the Promise – Leadership”.  The red ribbon is an international symbol of AIDS awareness that is worn by people all year round and particularly around World AIDS Day to demonstrate care and concern about HIV and AIDS, and to remind others of the need for their support and commitment.

HIV and AIDS is a disease that was unknown forty years ago. However, in its short existence, it has ravaged the world. AIDS was first highlighted in the USA and was then wrongly identified as a disease particular to gay men and injecting drug users. However similar symptoms were also shown in hemophiliacs and Haitians in the USA and several cases also reported in other European countries by the early 1980s. By 1982 doctors coined the name AIDS Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Early awareness campaigns on AIDS were targeted specifically at promoting safer sex among gay men.

The emergence of AIDS in a rising number of women and children forced doctors and scientists to believe that the disease is not limited to gay men and injecting drug users but attributed its nature to be infectious. In 1984 scientists were able to identify that HIV causes AIDS. HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Syndrome.

Since Injecting drug users (IDUs) were the most affected by AIDS, in the same year the Netherlands launched the first ever Needle Exchange Program and promoted the use of clean syringes among IDUs. Currently Pakistan is also one of the worst hit countries of HIV through the use of sharing needles among IDUs. By 1985 AIDS had been reported in nearly all regions of the world. AZT, Azidothymidine (also called zidovudine or ZDV), was the first ever drug approved for treating AIDS. However, much to the dismay of doctors, scientists and patients alike, AZT proved to be of no benefit to those in early stages of HIV. None the less it is due to AZT that mother to child transmission during child birth has been reduced in many developing countries. Today more and more HIV + mothers can look forward to having HIV free babies. With the failure of AZT, scientists developed antiretroviral treatment for HIV patients. This is the main type of treatment for HIV or AIDS. It is not a cure, but it can stop people from becoming ill for many years. The treatment consists of drugs that have to be taken every day for the rest of someone's life. For antiretroviral treatment to be effective for a long time, one has to take more than one antiretroviral drug at a time. This is what is known as Combination Therapy. The term Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) is used to describe a combination of three or more anti-HIV drugs. Brazil was the first country in the world which began providing free antiretroviral treatments to HIV infected people. In Pakistan these drugs are available to HIV infected people through the National Aids Control Program. However, in Pakistan and the world over, treatment is only accessible to a tiny minority of patients and many people have no treatment.