1999 AIDS campaign focuses on young people

The Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) yesterday launched the 1999 World Aids Campaign, which will aim to raise the level of open communication about HIV among children and young people. “Working with people under 25 is perhaps the best hope we have today of bringing the epidemic under control,” UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot said in Brazil at the official campaign launch. He said “adults spend too much time telling young people what to do without listening to what they need: affection, close bonds with adults, and education about healthy sexuality.” Experience shows that the stigma surrounding HIV infection can be significantly reduced by educating adolescents about HIV/AIDS and especially dispelling myths about its causes, according to a UNAIDS press release received by IRIN.

The prevalence of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa is greater than anywhere else in the world. Since the start of the epidemic, an estimated 34 million people living in sub-Saharan Africa have been infected and 11.5 million people, a quarter of them children, have already died.