Baku marks World AIDS Day on December 1
Baku, December 1 (AZERTAC). World AIDS Day on 1 December brings together people from around the world to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS and demonstrate international solidarity in the face of the pandemic. The day is an opportunity for public and private partners to spread awareness about the status of the pandemic and encourage progress in HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care in high prevalence countries and around the world.
The 2012 theme for World AIDS Day is "Working Together for an AIDS-Free Generation".
On this occasion, Azerbaijani Republic Center of the Struggle against AIDS has also conducted a press-conference today in Hyatt Regency Hotel to discuss the most uneasy aspects of the global AIDS epidemic and ways to include young people in the country’s response to HIV and AIDS.
Press conference was aimed at exploring priorities of regional cooperation in improving HIV/AIDS legislation and strengthening national capacities for effective response to the HIV epidemic. The speakers noted that preventing HIV/AIDS was among key government priorities in Azerbaijan, adding that “the Center has adopted relevant programs, strengthened relevant legislation and also done good job to strengthen social security of the HIV/AIDS affected people”.
“HIV is one of the most terrible threats facing world today. Azerbaijan is still a low-prevalence country in terms of HIV/AIDS”.
The history of fighting against AIDS in Azerbaijan has been going on for more than two decades, and it began when Azerbaijan was a part of the Soviet Union. The first control of HIV infection in Azerbaijan Republic has been carried out since 1987. The first case of HIV-infection in Azerbaijan was detected in a citizen of Uganda, and in 1992 in a citizen of Azerbaijan. Like in the other post-Soviet countries a tendency of growing HIV-infected people is observed in Azerbaijan in the past 2 years.
The first governmental response on a threat of an HIV epidemic in the country resulted in the establishment of the National AIDS Center in 1989.
Information about the HIV infection spread for the first time in 1981 in the United States. The U.N. declared Dec. 1 AIDS Day in 1988.
Today, about 34 million people living with HIV/AIDS have been registered in the world. Every year, the disease kills about 2 million people. Due to the increase in the number of infected people in recent years, activities to combat the spread of the virus have increased.
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