GCC World AIDS Day Event

Global Citizen Corps leaders gathered to make some noise on Sunday, December 6th in Portland ,OR. With live music, facts and figures hanging from red balloons and a lot of energy they joined together to build awareness about the global AIDS Pandemic.

Last year 2.7 people became infected worldwide, half of which were young people between the ages of 15 and 24. That breaks down to nearly 6,000 people under 25 infected each day.

Now 33 million people around the world are living with HIV/AIDS and women account for 50 percent of those cases. Although the pandemic is worldwide, Sub-Saharan Africa has been hardest hit—the area accounts for around 10% of the world’s population but it accounts for 67% of all people living with HIV/AIDS.

Due to slightly increased access to improving drugs, the number of people living with HIV/AIDS has risen. Despite this around 2 million people still died of the disease in 2008.

All these scary statistics hung from the red balloons just above visitors’ heads at the Action Center in Portland to help people understand the realities of the AIDS pandemic.

Created with flickr slideshow.