GRID

"Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body." - 1 Corinthians 6:18 (King James Version)

In 1980, there was an increase of the occurrence of Kaposi's Sarcoma and fungal pneumonia among gay people in major cities in US, and since these diseases are common among immuno-compromise patients, they (doctors) named the disease as Gay Related Immune Deficiency (GRID). The name itself caused a major chaos among religion community, many preachers used this passage (1 Corinthians 6:18) condemning gay people and their lifestyle stating that this disease is the wrath from the Creator. But now we know better, for whatever reason that GRID a gay disease from God actually can  also infects straight people (how come?). Not until 1982 a proper name for this abomination was proposed; Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and the probable cause of this disease had discovered, a retrovirus which now commonly known as Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). This picture below is 10 facts on HIV/AIDS that we should all know from WHO website.

When discussing about HIV/AIDS, there's not much that i know about. One program i know that is implemented in Indonesia called Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) which is very important in preventing HIV/AIDS pandemic situation. I remember when browsing about PMTCT in the net, there's even people asking regarding how-about a child can get HIV, since s/he is not having sex at all. This really shows that there's people that are still ignorance bout this and the awareness about knowledge about HIV/AIDS vertical transmission is still minimum. In fact, it's a common myth and believe that HIV women can't get pregnant, and they will die young. This myth is a total bullshit and I believe that not all of us know the fact that a HIV positive woman can get up to 98% of chance in having a completely health child. True story!! I'm not bullshitting you some more. Mother to child transmission risk can be reduced to 2% with 3 essential steps:

• Antiretroviral administration
• elective caesrean section
• non-breast feeding

As a conclusion, I encourage we all to support World AIDS Day campaign on December 1st of every year to increase the community awareness and showing that we care and want to help preventing and curing this disease, HIV and AIDS. In contrast to pink ribbon used in breast cancer awareness campaign, World AIDS Day uses red ribbons as a symbol that we are aware of HIV/AIDS health burden. Here is a short video ads regarding this campaign and this year 2010 themes of World AIDS Day : Universal Access and Human Rights