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The (RED) ALERT for AIDS. Keep the Promise.

(RED) ALERT on Dazed Digital
(RED) ALERT on Dazed Digital
More than twenty-five million human beings have died of AIDS since the first case of HIV was reported in 1981: on average, over a million people a year every year for the past two and a half decades. So far in 2006, according to UNAIDS and the World Health Organization, 2.9 million people died of AIDS and 4.3 million more were infected with HIV. As of today, December 1, 2006 — the nineteenth annual WORLD AIDS DAY — there are 39.5 million men, women and children in the world living with HIV, of whom 63% (around 25 million) live in Africa south of the Sahara.
The epidemic is growing, despite sharp increases in donor support and recent progress in scaling up treatment. Over a million people in sub-Saharan Africa are now receiving antiretroviral drug therapy (representing a ten-fold increase in the last three years), but over 5,500 are still dying every day, their suffering preventable, their condition in the mass majority of cases undiagnosed. Today AIDS is the world’s leading cause of death among men and women aged 15-59 and still 76% of HIV sufferers are as yet untreated. Lack of awareness, prevention, testing, medical infrastructure and access to medicines continue to exacerbate one of the deadliest epidemics of this or any era.
Today, six years after heads of government pledged to contain and reverse the spread of HIV by 2015 as part of the Millennium Development Goals agreement, only one of every five people at risk of infection has access to basic prevention services and just one out of every eight who would be tested is being. Today, only 9% of HIV-positive women are receiving the inexpensive medication which would prevent them transmitting the virus to their newborns. As of today, AIDS has made orphans of twelve million African children. In the words of the UN Secretary-General, the epidemic is quite simply “the greatest challenge of our generation”.
“Accountability — the theme of this World AIDS Day — requires every President and Prime Minister, every parliamentarian and politician, to decide and declare that ‘AIDS stops with me’,” Kofi Annan said in his official statement. “But accountability applies not only to those who hold positions of power. It also applies to all of us… It requires every one of us to help bring AIDS out of the shadows, and spread the message that silence is death.”
One way of not staying silent today is to go (RED). The creation of Bono and DATA Chairman Bobby Shriver, (PRODUCT) RED is an innovative scheme to drive “a steady flow of corporate money” towards fighting AIDS (and may yet prove a landmark project in the annals of consumer-consciousness). Already partnered with Amex, Apple, Armani, Motorola and Google, among other leading global brands, (PRODUCT) RED is founded on a powerfully simple premise. Buy a (RED) product and a share of the profits goes to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The color of blood and a symbolic curl of ribbon, red is the color du jour…
The British national newspaper The Independent is (RED); as is the MySpace page of the UK style bible Dazed & Confused, where a 24-hour digital broadcast is running — an all-day festival of artwork, photography, audio and short video “to spread awareness, combat prejudice and inspire action”. ‘(RED) alert‘ is showcasing contributions from Patti Smith, Yoko Ono, Roman Coppola and Bjork, among much else (including a trio of short films by Mike Figgis which carry the (RED) concept into a new cultural space altogether).
On (PRODUCT) RED’s ‘Global Fund’ page, there’s a little map of Africa, shaded according to demographic concentration of HIV. The boldest red is reserved for those countries where the virus is prevalent in more than 10% of the population, namely the Central African Republic, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Lesotho. While the UNAIDS Secretariat’s declared aim of providing universal access to HIV prevention, treatment and care by 2010 may seem like a humanitarian pipe-dream, it need not be. Every day the more people that become conscious of this long, horrifying, sad and shameful saga of human suffering — 40,000,000 infected, 25,000,000 dead — the more likely it becomes that the challenge of this generation can be met (and won).

01 December 2006 | 03.55pm (CET) | posted by Joe | |
TAGS Human Rights | Ethical Values & Responsibility | Health & Nutrition | Quality of Life & Prosperity | Future

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