Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2000. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Associated Press - Friday, Dec. 1, 2000
Jill Lawless, Associated Press Writer
"I've seen the way AIDS is tearing so many young lives apart, but I've also seen people fighting back - spreading the word about prevention, looking after orphans, supporting each other," said Williams.
Williams planned to use a 50-ton crane to smash a wall as part of a "Break The Silence" campaign run by UNICEF, which estimates AIDS has orphaned more than 13 million children around the world.
A U.N. report issued this week said 36.1 million people are living with HIV worldwide, with 5.3 million new infections during 2000. Some 3 million people will die this year from AIDS, it said.
The United Nations' message for the 13th World AIDS Day was that men must take responsibility for their behavior to help stop the spread of the deadly virus.
"Men can make a particular difference - by being more caring, by taking fewer risks and by facing the issue of AIDS head-on," U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said.
Activists used a vast range of media to convey their message. In Britain, a Web site urged people to "Make a Difference," while telephone users in New Delhi and Bombay heard a recorded message saying "anyone can get AIDS, everyone can prevent it."
Cartoon leaflets and condoms were distributed in Athens' main Syntagma Square, while in Vietnam buses festooned with condoms passed out pamphlets and prophylactics.
In the Netherlands, billboards encouraged young people to avoid sexually transmitted diseases, or STDs, by having safe sex.
"STDs are available everywhere!" one poster read. Smaller print below added: "Condoms too."
In many Asian countries, where conservative social values are common, the message was compassion.
In China, officials handed out condoms and newspapers carried touching articles about AIDS victims in a campaign to tackle public ignorance. At Beijing's Western Railway Station, posters graphically showed sufferers with sores, but tried to dispel misconceptions that AIDS can be caught by shaking hands or sharing toilet seats.
In Bangkok, Thailand, men in fluorescent green-and-orange costumes shaped like condoms sought contributions from commuters at train and bus stations.
In the Philippines, a politician organized an event that mixed images of sex and the threat of AIDS: A naked movie starlet held up a giant syringe and posed before an immense model phallus that was later blown to bits by firecrackers ignited inside.
In Japan, volunteer groups were targeting youngsters.
"AIDS awareness is low among young people," said Teishi Sasaki, an official of the Japanese Foundation for AIDS Prevention. "They feel, 'It's not my problem.'"
At a hospital in Melbourne, Australia, children of AIDS sufferers planted a new rose hybrid - the Hope Rose - in a ceremony to inspire people with the virus not to give up.
Drugs are delaying the onset of AIDS in many HIV-positive people, at least in the developed countries. But ignorance, complacency and poverty are sending infection rates climbing in many nations.
In Russia, some 30,000 people tested positive for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, this year, the health ministry said - almost as many as in the past 13 years combined.
Britain's health department said 52 percent of heterosexual men in London who are HIV-positive are unaware they are infected.
"It's a tragedy for them, and there's a risk that they can pass the virus to sexual partners or transmit it to their child," said Margaret Johnson, secretary of the British HIV Association.
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