Dec. 1, 2015 is marked as the Canadian AIDS Awareness that aimed to commemorate the global spread of HIV virus across all countries. This should be a groundbreaking year of the event where progress on the treatment is said to be on the horizon. The campaign targeted an international alliance that has partnered with the World Health Organization that supports community actions on the HIV epidemic.
The first World AIDS Day was held in 1988. It was a way of highlighting the worldwide AIDS pandemic as well as opening up new ideas to ensure universal treatment to support HIV/AIDS victims. Since then, it has been estimated that 1.2 million people died all around the world with AIDS-related cases and 36.9 million people are living with the disease in 2014. The World AIDS Awareness 2015 set the theme "Getting to zero: Zero new HIV infections. Zero discrimination. Zero AIDS related deaths."
HIV or Human Immunodeficiency Virus infection attacks the immune system where it destroys the CD4, a type of white blood cell. The virus then makes the body defenseless from various diseases. This will eventually lead to death as the body cannot defend itself even from the weakest infection.
The Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research is funding sources to support the studies on the potential long-term cure for the disease. Until today, researchers continue to study the disease and its cure like Dr. Sadhna Joshi at the University of Toronto is experimenting on the prevention of gene infection that removes HIV receptors in the immune cells; Dr. Deborah Money focuses on the research on the safe use of antiretroviral therapy that can affect the child and the mother during the pregnancy; Dr. Frank Plummer, named as 'Canada's Health Researcher of the Year' in 2007 from the University of Manitoba, discovers resistance to HIV infections; and CANFAR researcher and Director of the McGill University AIDS Centre, Dr. Mark Weinberg, discovers a component that focuses on anti-viral drugs, as well as gene therapy and understanding drug resistance.
