World AIDS Day request: more funding. World AIDS Day and events like the International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa, in Senegal, Dec. 3-7, demonstrate that the disease remains “extraordinarily important for those who are trying to fight AIDS in this world,” says Shanta Devarajan, chief economist for the World Bank’s Africa region. That’s because 20 years after the first World AIDS day shone a spotlight on the virus, some 33 million people are living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, reports the World Bank. AIDS is increasingly seen as not only a health problem but society’s problem, says Devarajan. “We need all the resources and all the mechanisms that we have in society to fight AIDS.” While AIDS remains the world’s No. 1 health threat, in the United States it poses a particular grave risk to Black Americans. As Phill Wilson, executive director of the Black AIDS Institute, puts it, “AIDS in America is a Black disease . . . about half of the just over 1 million Americans living with HIV or AIDS are Black.” The institute is asking the Obama administration to set up the same type of domestic funding program for HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and research programs in America as President Bush did through the President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in international communities.

What can you do about HIV/AIDS?  What is your personal responsibility for fighting HIV and AIDS, Vital Signs asks on the 20th anniversary of World AIDS Day. As Black Americans make up nearly half of all Americans living with HIV, Vital Signs wants to know what are you willing to do to stop the spread of HIV and AIDS? To weigh in, go to Vital Signs.