World AIDS Day 2010

Today is December 1 and many of us in a big hurry and a Christmas rush, by cleaning fresh snow or by carefully driving on the frozen roads, have forgotten that today is the World day of the fight against on of the most terrible illness in the world – AIDS. When I in year 2008 wrote in the context of Second Life world about this day (here), some both sad and terrible statistics had been missed there. So, here are the facts about HIV and AIDS.

• To date around 65 million people have been infected with HIV and AIDS has killed more than 25 million people since it was first recognized in 1981.
  
• The vast majority of the 38.6 million people living with HIV in 2005 are unaware of their status.
  
• In 2005 AIDS claimed the lives of 2.8 million people and over 4 million people were newly infected with the virus.
  
• At around 17.3 million, women make up almost half of the total number of people living with the virus.
  
• Sub-Saharan remains the most affected region in the world. Two-thirds of all people living with HIV, 24.5 million, are in sub-Saharan Africa.
  
• Declines in HIV prevalence have been noted in some countries, including Kenya, Zimbabwe, urban parts of Haiti and Burkina Faso and four Indian states including Tamil Nadu.
  
• There are more new HIV infections every year than AIDS-related deaths and as more people become infected with HIV, more people will die of AIDS-related illnesses.
  
• Worldwide, fewer than one person in five at risk of becoming infected with HIV has access to basic prevention services. Only one person in eight who want to be tested is currently able to do so.
  
• Each day, 1500 children worldwide become infected with HIV, the vast majority of them newborns.

What will you do for this thing? I have donated into above mentioned fund in RL and in SL I wear the symbol of the fight against AIDS – red ribbon.

Sources: Care, Keep A Child Alive, USA Today, World AIDS Day 2010

Fragments

Today, it will be not long contribution. I am working on some longer now. Now there are only two fragments from today's. In the morning, I wanted to sit under the tree with book in my hands in park in Bohemia and to meditate bit. Day has flashed by quite slow and I have remembered later, what day has been today. So even I have joined to the AIDS Day as you can seen on the second picture.

1.000.000 L$ in ¾ Hour!

Today I have received a short notice into my Email. It was about one event, which has taken place in SL yesterday. The whole article about it is on The Secondlife Newspaper. I have to share it with you.

The charity is not only a domain of the real life, but there are several charity forms in Second Life, e.g. the help to poor people in the third world, the distance child adoption or the help to AIDS patients. I wrote about this here. There is also the form of sims sponsoring through avatar donation and it is a case of yesterday event.

As you can see on the picture, this situation has appeared 15 minutes later after the opening the clothing fair at an archipelago of 9 sims. In that time there were about 300 avatars. While there was the dance party in the middle sim, the total sim donation achieved 1.000.000 lindes during only 45 minutes! Incredible!

And what can you find there? Women and men clothes, shoes, fashion generally, fashion in Gothic, Neko, Mediaeval of Victorian style or you can hunt tresures.

Be careful, the sim, mostly the middle one, is often full. Therefore, it is necessary to decrease amount of your accessories, etc. to move friendly. But of course no nudity!

SLurl: The Mediterranean Sea

(Source: The Secondlife Newspaper)

Ancient Enemy from the Deep of Time

Recently, I have written here about a world day of fight against AIDS and about a symbol of this fight. Also recently I have found some news about age of HIV on the web. Here it is.

Researchers at Stanford University report discovering an ancient predecessor to HIV that evolved in primates millions of years earlier than previously thought.

The researchers studied gray mouse lemurs, native to Madagascar, and discovered they carried several lentiviruses, a family of pathogens that include HIV and the simian version of HIV common among other African monkeys. A genetic analysis and geographical studies showed the lemurs carried the lentiviruses for at least 14 million years and possibly as long as 85 million years.

Scientists had previously believed that the simian version of HIV has existed for fewer than 1 million years.

"[This discovery] points to the direction for future research, that we need to establish how widespread these viruses are," Robert Gifford, an infectious disease researcher with Stanford, and lead author of the study, told The Guardian. Many simians, such as mandrills, sooty mangabeys, and green monkeys, carry lentiviruses without getting ill.

That knowledge could be used to protect humans from transmission of other HIV-like viruses still confined to wildlife and pave the way for treatments or vaccines for HIV that target portions of lentiviruses that have not mutated or evolved over millions of years, the researchers say.



(Sources: Wikipedia.org, Gaywired.com, YouTube.com)

World AIDS Day

Today’s contribution is dedicated to a theme of AIDS, because 1st December is world day of fight against AIDS. As I mention later, this theme has also a response in the world of Second Life.
AIDS is an abbreviation from English “Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome“ or also “Acquired ImmunoDeficiency Syndrome“. In the right word meaning, AIDS is not any illness, but a complex of symptoms and infections that causes the immunity system collapse and death later on. HIV (Human Imunodeficiency Virus) is the cause. AIDS was first described in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the U.S.A. in 1981 and HIV was identified as by American and French scientists in the early 1980’s. Till now, nobody found any vaccine to kill HIV. There are only many drugs and the combinations of drugs that can slow the illness. In this context, I would like to mention name of Prof. Antonin Holy from the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry and Biochemistry AS CR, v. i. i. He and his team and in co-operation with American company Gilead Science developed the preparation VIREAD and he is also the inventor of others, see for more here. The inhibitor of reverse transcriptase of HIV – VIREAD – approved in the U.S.A. in 2001 is one of the most effective drugs against AIDS nowadays. It significantly increases the life quality of the patients and it became hope of millions HIV positive patients in the whole world. The use of VIREAD is approved in many countries of the world including EU countries and Japan.
Although they are known all possible transfers of HIV in human body, at the beginning it was not so, because an infection spread out first in the homosexual community in New York and among the addicts (collective using of the injection needles). Unfortunately, after several years, AIDS was identify between the heterosexual pairs, it was found the transfer from infected mother to an embryo during pregnancy and the infection due to the transfusion of infected blood. Today, AIDS has pandemic character. In the year 2007, it was estimated that number of diseased patients achieved 37,000,000 people; 2,100,000 was killed by HIV including 300,000 children. It is a bog problem not only in Africa and Asia, but also in Europe. The way of transfer is known! They are known the methods how to protect oneself! Why so much?
The red ribbon in the picture is a symbol of solidarity with HIV-positive people and those living with AIDS. Today, people are putting this ribbon on their lapels for that reason. I think, it is same in SL today. Certainly there are several places in the SL, where one can obtain this ribbon. I personally have it from on German sim, where it is placed as charity for AIDS-Hilfe Bremen for 100 L$. If somebody is interested, I can send LM. Otherwise remember the patients and the victims at least. Thank you very much.

(Other source: Wikipedia)