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December 1 2020 was the 33rd anniversary of World AIDS Day.
World AIDS Day was established by James W. Bunn and Thomas Netter in 1987, and, ever since then, it has been celebrated annually on December 1. It is an opportunity for people to educate themselves on HIV, to talk about it openly, and to remember those who have died of AIDS-related illnesses in the past. It is also a day for honouring those who have fought to reduce the stigma around AIDS since 1981.
AIDS was first mentioned in the gay newspaper, New York Native, on May 18 1981, and was recognized as a new sort of pneumonia. In the early days of the epidemic, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, coined the term “4H disease” after the people most commonly affected with it: homosexuals, heroin users, hemophiliacs and Haitians, while the media called it GRID, gay-related immune deficiency. Not a year later, the illness was finally named AIDS: Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, but by that time, it had already become heavily stigmatized. Whatever actions had been taken by the American `government were focused on protecting the healthy from the disease. Until ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) was founded in 1987, the US government was yet to offer support for the diseased or their families, nor had they planned to prevent the spread of the epidemic. The only support to the people with AIDS (PWAs) had been provided by PWAs and LGBTQ+ activists, while the general consensus outside was to “isolate the illness and let it run its course.”*
Later that year, Bunn and Netter, who were officers for the Global Programme on AIDS at the WHO, proposed the idea of World AIDS Day to UNAIDS: the joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS.
World AIDS Day had become the first-ever global health day.
However, the fight is far from over. While many first-world countries systematically provide drugs and healthcare to PWAs, this isn’t the case in several developing countries in Africa and the Pacific. In the past 39 years, 35 million people have been lost to the virus. Currently, there are estimated to be around 38 million infected individuals in the world, a third of whom do not have access to the treatment. In 2019 alone, 1.7 million people had become infected with AIDS due to the lack of essential services.
But this year, World AIDS Day isn’t only about AIDS. This year, people with AIDS all over the world are standing up to help vulnerable groups survive the COVID-19 pandemic; numerous organizations in Latin America, the Caribbean and South-East Africa are providing those in need with financial assistance, food and shelter - the same way PWAs before them had helped fight the US government’s negligence of AIDS in the 1980s. This year is about not letting the world make the same mistakes they’ve made in the past. This year is about combating marginalization of peoples all over the world, and most importantly, this year is about granting everyone basic and equal rights to the vaccine whenever it comes out.
As UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima issued in her statement, this year is about global solidarity and shared responsibility. While World AIDS Day is your sign to educate yourself on the epidemic and donate to the organizations fighting it, be that National AIDS Trust or a more localized group, this year it is also your sign to fight for equitable access to healthcare.
*Fung, Richard and McCaskell, Tim. "Queerly Canadian: An Introductory Reader in Sexuality Studies," pp. 191-195.