December 1st. World AIDS Day: Remembering the ‘other’ pandemic
December 1st is World AIDS Day when time is taken to remember the many millions who have died and,(in lesser numbers) continue to die of the illness, even if Donald Trump is not.
The World Health Organisation is focusing on ‘take the rights path: my health, my rights’ looking at global health inequalities
Cases and deaths still occur in Britain from AIDS but they are relatively limited. There remains no cure or completely effective vaccine against AIDS but there are treatments that can very significantly increase life expectancy.
I’ll take time to recall several friends who did die of AIDS, far too young, in the 1980s before it became understood how important it was to keep to ‘safe sex’ practices.
In 2025 AIDS is a chronic illness in the UK rather than a pandemic but there remain significant numbers of cases and deaths around the world which impact, as is more or less always the case, the poor more than the rich and in areas where early treatment is less easily available.
In the context of COVID-19 it is interesting to note the similarities with AIDS and the downsides.
The origins of AIDS remain unclear but the line that it was deliberately started by scientists (American rather than Chinese in this case) is fanciful. Certainly transmission from the animal world appears a possibility but there are numbers of histories and theories
There were a number of false stories about how AIDS could be acquired including from toilet seats and through kissing mostly underwritten by a considerable level of homophobia, although AIDS is by no means entirely confined to gay men.
Likewise and this may also seem familiar there were those who denied that AIDS was a significant or noteworthy issue at all, the most well-known UK exponent of this was Dr Michael Fitzpatrick who argued that AIDS prevention was an industry and the scale of illness was vastly overstated.
Keeping in mind this December 1st that COVID is not the only pandemic around in the world- TB and Cholera remain killers too-is a sobering thought.
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