World Aids Day 2018

[Jim Allen]

Well I know somewhat early and a lot of the US based people both here and in work are still stressing about thanksgiving, however instead of waiting for 1st of December to arrive, I decided to send my company email out about World Aids Day this morning.

Its not a lot of effort but even if it makes 1 or 2 people think for a moment or better yet test well, than its 5 mins well spent typing it up.

Jim

Hi All,

I wanted to share a few thoughts/updates since April as it will soon be World Aids Day. 

In April we had a bake sale & presentation on Living with HIV on site to raise funds for the charity HIV Ireland and awareness with regards to HIV in Ireland. We raised an amazing 416 Euro, again I truly thank you for your donations and support.

The current situation is that on World AIDS Day 2018, Ireland is facing the real prospect that new HIV diagnoses will not only top 500 for the third year in a row. To date, provisional figures for 2018 show there have been 454 new HIV diagnoses in Ireland,  an increase of 66 compared to this week last year meaning, If this trend continues in 2018, Ireland is likely to experience the highest numbers of new HIV diagnoses on record.

I also shared that on a global front about 1 to 1.2 million deaths occurred in 2016 and that from 2011-2016 HIV/AIDS that it was the leading cause of death worldwide for women aged 15-44 years. Sadly the update since than is the 2017 number published in August 2018 showed that although women constitute more than half of all people living with HIV, they are remain disproportionately impacted in terms of treatment & care support, in part this is a contributing factor to the fact that AIDS-related illnesses remains the leading cause of death for women globally of reproductive age 15-44.

This upcoming World AIDS Day I will be sharing Red Ribbons in the Dublin office and, I hope that you will join me in wearing one to show awareness and support for the 78 million people past and present affected by HIV.

Thanks for reading.
Kind regards

Jim.

PS > I found this a really interesting short 30 min movie for anyone who is interested.

December 1993, Tom Hanks, Mary Steenburgen and Denzel Washington starred in Philadelphia, the first mainstream movie to address the AIDS epidemic. At the time, fear of HIV was rampant, and effective treatment didn’t exist. Fast-forward 25 years: Much progress has been made, but so much work remains. A short YouTube movie called the The Last Mile , was published November 2018  in which Philadelphia’s three stars and screenwriter Ron Nyswaner reflect on the early years of the public health crisis and highlight some of the efforts taking place right now to meet today’s challenges

[Jim Allen]

For World AIDS Day I Just got a handmade gift from GF, based on an AIDSinfo illustration 




https://twitter.com/JimAllenDublin/status/1068230087735197696



https://t.co/sJosSqPXlG

[Jim Allen]

Going to give it a home on my desk at work

[leatherman]

For World AIDS Day I Just got a handmade gift from GF, based on an AIDSinfo illustration 

that's adorable. I want an HIV too!

[Jim Allen]

that's adorable. I want an HIV too!

She smiled when I showed her your post.

For World Aids Day I did not do/plan anything major, just a few emails and earlier this week hanging up some leaflets at work (Causal clothing day). Nice surprise was someone at work had made cupcakes for me to handout 

Today I was taking to people about HIV whilst handing out leaflets regarding the benefits of knowing your status & red-ribbons. At the very least I spoke to 60 people, only had 2 bad reactions ... I think that's pretty good.