Tunisia observes World Aids Day
TUNISIAONLINENEWS- Under the theme “human rights and access to treatment”, Tunisia is observing on December 1, 2009, World Aids Day, an international day to raise awareness about HIV and AIDS around the world.
The theme was chosen to address the critical need to protect human rights and make HIV prevention, treatment, care and support accessible to all. It acts as a call to countries to remove laws that discriminate against people living with HIV.
For this reason, Tunisian authorities and international organizations are working to combat AIDS. To this end, several NGO’s including the ATL, MST / SIDA section Tunisia, plan according to daily newspaper “le Renouveau”, to launch in collaboration with UN-AIDS and the United Nations Development Program, a legal guide for people with HIV.
At the international level, the HIV infection rate has decreased by 17% since 2001. During the last 8 years, the virus has decreased by 15% in Africa, 25% in East Asia and 10% in West and South Asia.
In spite of this progress, professionals expect the number of HIV infected people to reach 33.4 million worldwide, a number which makes the fight against HIV an urgent international priority .
Tunisia was among the first countries to implement awareness and information programs.
It also took the initiative to launch, in 1985, when the first cases of HIV infection were detected, national preventive strategies against Aids as well as providing means of prevention and free medivcal tretament for infected persons.
First discovered in 1981, Aids has since spread all over the world. There are about 3700 HIV positive people in Tunisia, including 1900 women. 70 new cases of contamination are reported each year, which makes it one of the least infected countries on the continent. Early detection and effective official campaigns account for the relatively low-rate prevalence of the virus in Tunisia.
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