World AIDS Day

World AIDS Day is marked internationally on 1 December.

It’s a day for Australians to:

• show their support for people living with HIV
• raise awareness about prevention, treatment and care
• eliminate stigma and discrimination around HIV
• remember and honour the people we have lost to HIV.

Wearing a red ribbon is one way people show their commitment to HIV remembrance, awareness and support for people living with HIV.

In 2024 the global theme asks us to consider how we will help – to uphold human rights and support those who are marginalised or discriminated against. In Australia the national theme asks us to be proactive with It starts with me.

HIV AND THE BLEEDING DISORDERS COMMUNITY

HIV has been part of our history and continues to be part of our community’s experience.

In the mid-1980s some adults and children with bleeding disorders acquired HIV from their plasma-derived clotting factor treatment products. Some lost their lives to HIV while others live with HIV today. Today treatment products are much safer: the risk of bloodborne infection from products manufactured from blood is extremely low. But HIV has had a profound effect not only the people with HIV, but also those close to them, their health professional carers and the bleeding disorders community generally.

In Australia people with bleeding disorders drew on the resilience that was already a strong feature and resolved to respond to HIV as a community, taking on effective advocacy around safer treatments and providing support.

TAKING A RIGHTS PATH

In 2024 the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) calls on us to take a rights path to HIV. Central to this are the themes of Inclusion. Respect. Equity. If we are to take on the commitment of It starts with me, what does this mean for the bleeding disorders community?

What does Inclusion. Respect. Equity. mean to you?

For World AIDS Day last year, our community members Neil, Mike and Anth shared short reflections on these themes. We feel they are still relevant and meaningful and worth republishing. We share them again with permission.

Neil
I’ve been very open about my HIV status for years now and I’ve been humbled by the respect shown to me by everyone I’ve told. Being free to answer questions and break down any fears has only helped my inclusion in social circles.

Mike
When I see the word ‘inclusion’, I think of how the bleeding disorders community and the HTCs have come together to deal with HIV.

Haemophilia when I was growing up in the 1950s, 60s and 70s was life threatening and I required many treatments.

The 1980s was a catastrophic period. HIV caused a lot of devastation and worry to me and my wife personally. It also brought a lot of families together, and it was this support that helped us to survive this period in our lives where so much was unknown.

We were very fortunate to have great team of doctors, nurses and a psychologist who were very understanding and supportive, and we would not have survived this time without the tireless work from HFA.

Anth
For me, the themes of inclusion, respect and equity provide a checklist of game-changing ideals in global efforts to a) eliminate HIV transmission, and b) care for people living with HIV. Without a sharp uptick in these areas, the world’s poorest and least powerful communities will continue to be disproportionately affected.

But what do these words mean to our bleeding disorders community in Australia? Those of us who have lived with HIV for over 40 years, and those of us who have seen loved ones succumb? I often feel like our part in the story of HIV/AIDS gets forgotten. While the increasing dissociation of HIV/AIDS and bleeding disorders creates safety for us, it denies our truths and remarkable achievements too.

Whether you mark World AIDS Day privately or publicly, or not at all, please know that you remain part of a community that is extraordinary for its resilience and dignity in the face of bloodborne viruses.

READ MORE

Visit www.worldaidsday.org.au for more information about World AIDS Day in Australia.