Today marks the 20th anniversary of World Aids Day, a day for spreading awareness about the global Aids epidemic. Currently, 33 million people around the world are living with HIV/AIDS and over 2 million people died in 2007 due to AIDS. In The United States, the Center for Disease Control is quite blunt about the epidemic.

In the United States, the HIV/AIDS epidemic is a health crisis for African Americans. At all stages of HIV/AIDS—from infection with HIV to death with AIDS—blacks (including African Americans) are disproportionately affected compared with members of other races and ethnicities

And it’s not just black folks that are disproportionally affected. According to the CDC:

The HIV/AIDS epidemic is a serious threat to the Hispanic/Latino community. Hispanics/Latinos comprise 15% of the US population, but accounted for 17% of all new HIV infections occurring in the United States in 2006 [1]. During the same year, the rate of new HIV infections among Hispanics/Latinos was three times that of whites. In 2005, HIV/AIDS was the fourth leading cause of death among Hispanic/Latino men and women aged 35–44

And:

Even though the numbers of HIV and AIDS diagnoses for American Indians and Alaska Natives represent less than 1% of the total number of HIV/AIDS cases reported to CDC’s HIV/AIDS Reporting System, when population size is taken into account, American Indians and Alaska Natives in 2005 ranked 3rd in rates of HIV/AIDS diagnosis, after blacks (including African Americans) and Hispanics [1]. American Indians and Alaska Natives make up 1.5% (4.1 million people) of the total US population [2]. The rate of AIDS diagnosis for this group has been higher than that for whites since 1995.

Today, however, I’d like to specifically draw your attention to an international organization called Mothers2Mothers:

Each month, more babies are born with HIV in one clinic in Africa than in one year in the United States, Canada and England combined. This is because treatment to prevent the infection of newborns in the developed world has become as simple as a single dose of medicine for the mother and her newborn.

While these same clinical solutions are now available in Africa, their impact and effectiveness for HIV-positive mothers is less successful without complementary social, emotional and psychological support. mothers2mothers (m2m) helps save these children and their mothers by offering essential support.

While this crisis shouldn’t be relegated to awareness one day out of the year (but you knew that), now is as good a day as ever to reach into your pockets and give a few dollars.

See also Bloggers Unite and Yobachi for other bloggers spreading the word and sharing useful information today.