AIDS DAY 2010 - Facts and Stats

FACTS AND STATS

HIV: The basics

What is HIV?

HIV is a virus that attacks the body's immune system - the body's defence against diseases.

Are HIV and AIDS the same?

No. When someone is described as living with HIV, they have the HIV virus in their body. A person is considered to have developed AIDS when the immune system is so weak it can no longer fight off a range of diseases with which it would normally cope.

How is HIV passed on?

HIV can be passed on through infected blood, semen, vaginal fluids or breast milk.

The most common ways HIV is passed on are:

• Sex without a condom with someone living with HIV
• Sharing infected needles, syringes or other injecting drug equipment
• From an HIV-positive mother (to her child) during pregnancy, childbirth or breastfeeding (but with effective treatment and care the risk of transmission can be greatly reduced)

I don't know anyone with HIV... do I?

Today there are more people than ever before living with HIV in the UK, but less people report knowing someone with HIV.  People with HIV generally look healthy and many do not find it easy to tell other people, so you may not realise if someone you know if HIV positive.  To learn more about the different groups of people affected by HIV view the statistics.

Is there a cure for HIV?

No, but treatment can keep the virus under control and the immune system healthy. People on HIV treatment can live a healthy, active life, although they may experience side effects from the treatment. If HIV is diagnosed late, treatment may be less effective.

How can I protect myself and others from HIV infection?

Always use a condom when having vaginal or anal sex. You also may want to use a condom or dental dam during oral sex although the risk of transmission of HIV is much lower. You can get free condoms from a sexual health clinic, which you can locate at via the FPA website. Never share needles, syringes or any other injecting equipment.

Did you know?

• Over a quarter of people with HIV in the UK don’t know they are infected.
• One in 20 gay men in the UK is living with HIV.
• For someone diagnosed today at 35, the average age of diagnosis in the UK, life expectancy is over 72.
• The most common treatment today for someone diagnosed with HIV early is one pill, once or twice a day.
• Lots of people with HIV work and their HIV does not affect their working life.
• With the right medical help, the vast majority (approximately 99 per cent) of HIV positive women can give birth to healthy uninfected babies.
• There is no known case of HIV ever being transmitted at school yet some schools in the UK still refuse to accept children with HIV.
• HIV affects all ages. One in six people living with HIV in the UK are over 50. Last year one in ten people diagnosed were aged 16 to 24.

Funny Leave Applications

This is a collection of leave letters and applications written by people in various places........ A student's leave letter: "As I am suffering from my uncle's marriage I cannot attend the class...." A candidate's application: "This has reference to your advertisement calling for a 'typist And an accountant - Male or Female'... As I am both for the past Several years and I can handle both; I am applying for the post." I.T.I., Lahore: An employee applied for leave as follows: "Since I have to go to my village to sell my land along with my wife. Please sanction me one-week leave."  Another employee applied for half day leave as follows:  "Since I've to go to the cremation ground at 10 o-clocks and I may not return, please grant me half day casual leave" A leave letter to the headmaster: "As I am studying in this school I am suffering from headache. I request you to leave me today" An incident of a leave letter: "I am suffering from fever, please declare one day holiday." Another leave letter written to the headmaster: "As my headache is paining, please grant me leave for the day. "  A covering note:  "I am enclosed herewith..."   From H.A.L. Administration dept: "As my mother-in-law has expired and I am responsible for it, Please grant me 10 days leave. " Actual letter written for application of leave:  "My wife is suffering from sickness and as I am her only husband At home I may be granted leave". Letter writing:  "I am in well here and hope you are also in the same well." Another gem from I.T.I. Leave-letter from an employee who was Performing his daughter's wedding:  "As I am marrying my daughter, please grant a week's leave..." Another one: "Dear Sir: with reference to the above, please refer to my below..."

Brilliant poem on pronunciation

Brilliant poem on pronunciation HERE'S A POEM THAT THE WELL KNOWN MEDIA PERSON PRANNOY ROY SENT TO ALL HIS TEAM OF NDTV 24x7, WITH THE FOLLOWING WORDS:   If you can correctly pronounce every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world.  SO I WOULD RECOMMEND THAT YOU READ THIS LONG POEM ALOUD, SLOWLY AND CAREFULLY, WHEN YOU HAVE TIME. DO IT AS A FUN EXERCISE, AND NOTE DOWN THE 2 OR 3 NEW WORDS,TO CHECK THEIR PRONUNCIATION LATER.  Dearest creature in creation, Study English pronunciation. I will teach you in my verse Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse. I will keep you, Suzy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy. Tear in eye, your dress will tear. So shall I! Oh hear my prayer. Just compare heart, beard, and heard, Dies and diet, lord and word, Sword and sward, retain and Britain. (Mind the latter, how it's written.) Now I surely will not plague you With such words as plaque and ague. But be careful how you speak: Say break and steak, but bleak and streak; Cloven, oven, how and low, Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe. Hear me say, devoid of trickery, Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore, Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles, Exiles, similes, and reviles; Scholar, vicar, and cigar, Solar, mica, war and far; One, anemone, Balmoral, Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel; Gertrude, German, wind and mind, Scene, Melpomene, mankind. Billet does not rhyme with ballet, Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet. Blood and flood are not like food, Nor is mould like should and would. Viscous, viscount, load and broad, Toward, to forward, to reward. And your pronunciation's OK When you correctly say croquet, Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve, Friend and fiend, alive and live. Ivy, privy, famous; clamour And enamour rhyme with hammer. River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb, Doll and roll and some and home. Stranger does not rhyme with anger, Neither does devour with clangour. Souls but foul, haunt but aunt, Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant, Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger, And then singer, ginger, linger, Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge, Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age. Query does not rhyme with very, Nor does fury sound like bury. Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth. Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath. Though the differences seem little, We say actual but victual. Refer does not rhyme with deafer. Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer. Mint, pint, senate and sedate; Dull, bull, and George ate late. Scenic, Arabic, Pacific, Science, conscience, scientific. Liberty, library, heave and heaven, Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven. We say hallowed, but allowed, People, leopard, towed, but vowed. Mark the differences, moreover, Between mover, cover, clover; Leeches, breeches, wise, precise, Chalice, but police and lice; Camel, constable, unstable, Principle, disciple, label. Petal, panel, and canal, Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal. Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair, Senator, spectator, mayor. Tour, but our and succour, four. Gas, alas, and Arkansas. Sea, idea, Korea, area, Psalm, Maria, but malaria. Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean. Doctrine, turpentine, marine. Compare alien with Italian, Dandelion and battalion. Sally with ally, yea, ye, Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key. Say aver, but ever, fever, Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver. Heron, granary, canary. Crevice and device and aerie. Face, but preface, not efface. Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass. Large, but target, gin, give, verging, Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging. Ear, but earn and wear and tear Do not rhyme with here but ere. Seven is right, but so is even, Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen, Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk, Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work. Pronunciation (think of Psyche!) Is a paling stout and spikey? Won't it make you lose your wits, Writing groats and saying grits? It's a dark abyss or tunnel: Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale, Islington and Isle of Wight, Housewife, verdict and indict. Finally, which rhymes with enough, Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough? Hiccough has the sound of cup.