Battle against AIDS isn't just for one day a year
- Source: Global Times
- [21:53 November 30 2009]
- Comments
For young people discovering early love, a lack of knowledge on condoms and better protection can evaporate in that first bloom of intimacy, leaving them vulnerable to infection.
Bringing public figures to the forefront of the fight against this pandemic is still crucial in a world where about 6,700 people die a day while another 7,500 become infected.
But no one connects better to our young people than basketball player Yao Ming. His previous television commercials with Magic Johnson and Pu Cunxin was joined this week by a poster and video with the Houston Rockets star standing over five ordinary Chinese.
The latest campaign is the work of UNAIDS which, along with China's Ministry of Health, is putting a human face to this disease. It helps our hearts more deeply understand that AIDS matters to us all.
From President Hu Jintao to Premier Wen Jiabao, China's most senior leaders are out there shaking hands with our positive friends and families.
It reminds us (because we need reminding) that the virus is mainly transmitted through sharing needles and unprotected sex.
Still, a survey last year of six major cities found serious stigmatization.
The findings showed 48 percent thought they could contract HIV through a mosquito bite and 18 percent by having a positive person sneeze or cough over them. About 65 percent wouldn't live in the same house as someone living with HIV while another 48 percent wouldn't even eat together at the same table.
The irony is that of these respondents, only 19 percent said they would use a condom with a new partner.
Many of us still see AIDS as a disease of the dying. However, it's closer to being the stigma of the living.
UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibé was last week in Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin to sit down and talk face-to-face with university students and civil society groups.
He told us that his father was such an inspirational person that he never let the words "tired," "regret" and "impossible" to pass his lips.
It was a lighthearted comment that raised our spirits and more than a few smiles when our plane was diverted the next day from a fog-hit Beijing to a snowed-under Shenyang, Liaoning Province.
But it speaks so perfectly of the fight against AIDS and in tribute to our friends like Dandan.
We are sometimes tired and, yes, we may look back and regret. But the dream to live in a better world is far, far from impossible.
The author is a CCTV-9 news presenter and UNAIDS Goodwill Ambassador. james@james-chau. Com
