On the 1st of December of every year, the World AIDS Day is marked globally. This event was initiated in 1988 and is dedicated to raising awareness of the AIDS pandemic caused by the spread of HIV infection and also for mourning those who have died of the disease all over the world. The purpose of the event is to educate the populace on the prevention and control of AIDS. The theme for this years World AIDS Day is Know Your Status.
it is estimated that more than 9.4 million people living with HIV still do not know their status. - UNAIDS
The event this year is aimed at:
- Urging people to know their HIV infection status through testing, and to access HIV prevention, treatment and care services;
- Urging policy-makers to promote a “health for all” agenda for HIV and related health services, such as tuberculosis (TB), hepatitis and noncommunicable diseases.
HIV testing is essential for expanding treatment and achieving the 90-90-90 Targets. It also empowers people to make choices about HIV prevention, so that they can protect themselves and their loved ones. As of 2017, AIDS has been said to have killed between 28.9 million and 41.5 million people worldwide, and an estimated 36.7 million people are living with HIV,[3] making it one of the most important global public health issues in recorded history. To drastically cut down these figures, it is pertinent that everyone has the right knowledge of its prevention, but more importantly, each person must know his HIV status.
There are generally many barriers to HIV testing.
- Stigmatization and discrimination is one of these major barriers. Sometimes, other people treat HIV infected people like filth. People therefore fear that they might get a test result that says positive, thereby causing them to be victims of this stigmatization.
- Access to confidential HIV testing. Because people will want to keep knowledge of their status as private as possible, they refuse to check their status through any medium that seems porous. They prefer to be tested by medical practitioners who do not know them personally just to avoid knowledge of their status being public.
- Many people consider an HIV-positive status as a death sentence. The thought of getting an HIV-positive result scares people away from getting themselves tested. Many people get tested only after becoming very ill and symptomatic. This leads to HIV treatment being initiated late, undermining its many benefits for both treatment and prevention
- There however still remains a fraction of the population, mostly illiterates, who ignorantly think "HIV" is just a threat to help control overpopulation.
