Date: November 20th 1986
On this day with SHAC, the World Health Organization announced its first global effort to combat AIDS. This resulted in the creation of the Global Program on AIDS to raise awareness, formulate evidence-based policies, provide technical and financial support to countries, initiate relevant social, behavioral, and biomedical research, promote participation by nongovernmental organizations, and champion the rights of those living with HIV. As well, at this time, the International Steering Committee for people with HIV/AIDS was created which, six years later in 1992, became the Global Network of People Living with HIV. This increased and focused on empowerment, human rights, positive health, dignity, prevention, and sexual and reproductive health education and rights for people living with HIV/AIDS.
The founding of these groups came on the heels of the discovery made by three award-winning researchers of a third disease that causes AIDS. This discovery raised new doubts about safeguarding the blood supply against the lethal disease. The United States began work on prevention of the disease spreading or infecting the blood supply, and eventually the Surgeon General’s Report on AIDS was published. The “unusually explicit” report urged parents and schools to start “frank, open discussions” about AIDS. The urge to get people talking was beneficial and opened eyes to the reality of the situation. By the end of the year, 85 countries had reported 38,401 cases of AIDS to the World Health Organization. By region these were: Africa 2,323, Americas 31,741, Asia 84, Europe 3,858, and Oceania 395. This need for awareness caught on, and has been one of the main reasons that so much time, money and effort has gone into fighting this horrible disease.