HIV / AIDS in the World

Fantastic talk and presentation by Dr. Hans Rosling on HIV/AIDS...

http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_the_truth_about_hiv.html

I can't embed it here but I assure you it's definitely worth a view!

Dr. Rosling talks about how we always tend to oversimplify the HIV/AIDS problem into something that is "Africa" and he shows with hard core statistics the disparity within African nations, and even within the different cities of an African nation... He also talks about why it's essential to tackle the problem by preventing transmissions instead of only focusing on developing and delivering treatment...

Something that really struck me was with regards to statistics that we typically see. For example, we occasionally see statistics about the number of HIV/AIDS infected people in a certain country, or the % of people in a country / region that has the AIDS. This really doesn't paint a very accurate picture if you think about it.

For one, if people don't get tested, naturally the number of infected people will be less. Because we just won't know.

For another, in some of the worst hit countries in the world that are too poor to deliver much medical support to those infected, these people die young from the disease. Which then affects the total number of people infected (which usually only refers to the living)

If you flip this around, it means that a country with a moderate number of infected people and has the ability to provide more medical aid can help these people keep the disease at bay and ensure they can live longer and more meaningful lives. And this again affects the total number of people infected.

So what should we do in the face of this daunting challenge that faces mankind, and the very strong tendency for us to "over-simplify" or "out-classify" the problem when we see the news or the statistics?

As far as I can say, let's get ourselves tested so we know for sure and let's spread the word so people know more about HIV/AIDS, how to protect themselves and how to curb the transmission of this terrible virus.