Globe commemorates World AIDS Day

People from all around the world gathered to commemorate World Aids Day Thursday. In Denmark, a church held a quilt show and in Ethiopia people had a candlelight procession in a refugee camp. In Bloomington, the sidewalk by the Sample Gates was lined with candles.\nThe organizers said they wanted the event to raise awareness of the AIDS crisis in both the United States and the rest of the world, said Kathryn Mullen, co-director of IU Student Global AIDS campaign, one of the organizations that sponsored the event along with Kenya Development Volunteers and The Masters in Public Health Association.\nBut the cold and wind caused problems. Even though the candles for a vigil were in paper bags, they couldn't keep the wind out, and the candles wouldn't stay lit. The dedicated activists bundled up and kept lighting and relighting the candles anyway.\nMullen said the activists were motivated because many students don't think that AIDS and HIV is a problem for them, but college-age students are the fastest growing group being infected with HIV.\n"Most students are aware it's a problem in Africa," Mullen said. "It is a problem in Bloomington and our community, too."\nMullen added another one of the vigil's goals was to educate people and get rid of the stigma that is attached with AIDS. She knows a couple of men who couldn't get custody rights for their children because they were HIV positive.\nBut she said Bloomington was better than the other areas of Indiana with accepting people who have HIV.\nThe Bloomington Hospital has a program called Positive Link that raises money to help pay for the health care expenses of people with AIDS.\nThe United States spends $17 billion each year to help people Americans who are living with HIV. It is estimated that 40,000 new people will be infected with HIV next year, President Bush said in a speech Thursday.\n"It is not inevitable, it is not acceptable," Bush said.\nIn the same speech, he emphasized that America is not the only place in the world affected by the AIDS crisis. Africa has 10 percent of the world's population, but 50 percent of the people infected with HIV.\nBush announced a new five-year $15 billion program in 2003 called The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which funds the treatment and prevention of AIDS in Sub-Sahara Africa.\nBefore the program 50,000 people in Sub-Saharan Africa were being treated for HIV. Now 400,000 people are being treated, Bush said.\n"You have to give (the Bush administration) credit (for the program)," said Michael McColly, the guest speaker after the candlelight vigil.\nMichael McColly is a former IU student who is HIV positive and has spent time in Africa and Indian helping AIDS activists.\nThe program is giving people in Africa more access to the drugs they need to survive, McColly said, but it could be better. The drugs must be purchased from American companies, and if they could give the money to the countries of the U.N. AIDS fund, then the organization could buy generic drugs which are much cheaper, he said.\n"(The situation) is understandable but unfortunate," McColly said.\n-- The Associated Press contributed to this story.