AIDS does not discriminate. It can affect anyone, male or female, married or single, young or old, rich or poor, in any community in the nation.

AIDS is rapidly becoming one of the top five causes of death in the world. Current conservative estimates are that at least 42 million people are now HIV-positive, nearly half women. Of these, over three million are children.

Just last year, 5 million people were newly infected worldwide, and 3.1 million people died from AIDS. Fourteen thousand more people become infected each day, of whom 10% are babies.

Many young people are not aware that having unprotected sex can put them at risk for HIV infection. People with HIV infection show no apparent symptoms, and that is the reason it's so dangerous for people to have unsafe sex.

The only way to protect yourself from being infected is to be informed about how the disease is acquired, thus enabling you to make wise choices.

The virus is spread through contact with blood and other body fluids from an infected person. The virus can enter the body during any sexual activity where body fluids are present and through unprotected sex.

HIV/AIDS is also spread by sharing needles. Drugs usually cloud judgment and place individuals at higher risk of engaging in risky behavior.
Sharing needles with an infected person, even once, is very risky.

Many people have become infected with HIV and other diseases such as Hepatitis C by sharing needles or syringes because the virus from an infected person can remain in a needle or syringe and then be directly injected into the body of the next person.

Sharing any needle, including needles used for drugs, steroids, vitamins, ear piercing, or tattooing, is very dangerous.

How to avoid getting infected with the HIV virus.
Don't do drugs of any kind. Sharing needles can infect people. Drugs and alcohol can affect your judgment and lead you to engage you in risky behaviors, such as having unprotected sex.

Delay sexual intercourse. Abstinence is the only 100% proof protection against HIV.

When you are mature enough to make wise choices and decide to have intercourse, only do so with a partner who has been tested and has not engaged in risky sexual behaviors in the past six months. You should also be in a mutually faithful, long-term relationship.

If sexual intercourse outside of a mutually exclusive relationship is chosen, use a latex condom and nonoxynol-9, according to package directions, each and every time, but remember that condoms are NOT 100% foolproof.

In the face of all the death-related statistics, we must remember the individual people we know and have known and whose lives have been devastated by this disease. Each person lost to this disease is a separate tragedy that could easily have been prevented.

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