December 1st marks the start of Advent, and for some a chocolaty countdown to Christmas. December 1st is also World AIDS day, something I was reminded of when caught sight this morning of a red looped ribbon trampled into the ground.
The BBC has produced an interesting retrospective of posters promoting an awareness of the syndrome. The narration indicates how in dealing with a global problem, different messages have been constructed for different demographics with distinctive relationships to HIV/AIDS. In one instance, a poster targeted at African American women addresses the risk of catching Aids as a consequence of crack-fuelled, unsafe sex with a direct slogan: “CRACK… SEX… AIDS.” condensing the problem into three memorable words. A woman holds up a condom by way of a solution. A different poster aimed at respectable, middle-aged New Yorkers warns that any individual may have with AIDS with the statistic “more than 8000 New Yorkers over 50 years old have been diagnosed with AIDS”. The intention is to reduce risky sexual encounters as a result of complacency. In both cases the advice is the same, in the latter example expressed in words: “use a condom every time you have sex”. HIV/AIDS though remains a pandemic, with particularly high rates of infection in South Africa, where a culture of government-lead denialism has contributed to the problem. Better understanding of HIV and better access to antiretroviral drugs will help to reduce rates of infection and bring AIDS under control.
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