AIDS Is a Global Human Rights Issue

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2010/12/01/aids-is-a-global-human-rights-issue/

by James Parks, Dec 1, 2010



Today is World AIDS Day, and union members around the world are calling for increased workplace efforts to combat HIV/AIDS and a renewed commitment by world leaders to prevent the spread of the pandemic.

While funding for HIV and AIDS prevention has been hit hard by the global recession, we need to remember that AIDS itself is not in recession, says Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).

Governments have committed to reverse the spread of this disease by 2015, and action in the workplace and union work in the broader social context is critically important to achieving this aim.

Every day, some 5,000 people die of HIV/AIDS. A total of 33.3 million people worldwide are infected, according to the World Health Organization. The pandemic has devastated workers and their families, shattered communities and reversed improvements in working and living standards.

In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates about 1.1 million Americans have HIV, but about 20 percent don’t know it. Some 56,000 new infections occur each year in the United States, according to the CDC.

FULL story at link.