World AIDS Day

Happy December! Today, 12-1, is world AIDS day, holy moly global crisis. I care a lot about this issue for so many reasons and as a Christian, a hematology nurse, and a healthy American, I think it's imperative that we each do our little part. Enter blog as platform. Here's a refresher on the 2006 stats courtesy of the WHO:

39.5 million people in the world are living with HIV/AIDS, of those 17.7 mill are women and 2.3 mill are children. 4.3 million were newly diagnosed this year, and 2.9 million passed away from it. Africa currently has 12 million AIDS orphans, and these numbers are increasing daily. Just as a reference 24.7 million of those cases are in Sub-Saharan Africa compared to 1.4 million in North America.

Want to help? Well there are tons of ways. You can pray! You can adopt a little one from Africa via World Vision. It's only $35 a month. My little guy is 4 and he's in Tanzania. www.worldvision.org. Here's a sample of their Christmas card this year!

http://www.worldvision.org/about_us.nsf/child/gift_catalog_holiday_ecard?Open&campaign=1146078&cmp=EMC-1146078&ppi=30315274

Also... if you are in the Lou, you can resource the AIDS foundation. I am SO proud of my hometown that they have an AIDS foundation! www.aidstl.org. If you need a visual tear-jerker, there will be an Ashley Judd special on TLC at 8:00 tonight. We are all so blessed. Thanks for taking the time to read this. God Bless!