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01 December 2006
Hip-Hop Artist Ludacris Tells Teens To Learn Facts on AIDS
Rapper-actor winds up international tour as Youth AIDS ambassador
Washington – As American youth are learning their ABCs to succeed in school, rapper-actor Ludacris tells teens speaking any language on World AIDS Day that if they do not learn the ABCs of AIDS prevention, they might not live much beyond their school years.
Chris Bridges, or Ludacris as he is known as a hip-hop artist, is an ambassador for Youth AIDS initiative, which took its international HIV/AIDS awareness campaign to Washington December 1.
Youth AIDS programs around the world include voluntary counseling and testing services in Rwanda, food provision in Botswana and abstinence awareness campaigns in Zambia.
Although Bridges received a warm welcome from his fans, the rapper came to Washington to lead a serious discussion with area secondary-school and university students on halting the spread of HIV/AIDS among young people. Before his stop on the campus of the George Washington University on World AIDS Day, Bridges had taken his message to South Africa, other African nations and cities in the United States, including Los Angeles, Chicago and New York.
“Be the solution, not part of the problem,” Bridges said. “I’m only one human being, and I’m trying to lead by example,” the rapper said. “At the end of the day, it’s about saving lives.”
Since the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta issued its first warning about HIV/AIDS in 1981, more than 25 million people around the world have died from the disease. Access to treatment and prevention programs has expanded, but an estimated 40 million people are living with HIV/AIDS worldwide, with more than 4 million new infections in 2006 and almost 3 million deaths. (See related article.)
An estimated 530,000 children worldwide have been infected with HIV in 2006. There are more than 2 million children under the age of 15 living with the HIV infection, with the vast majority living in sub-Saharan Africa.
According to Kate Roberts, founder and director of Youth AIDS, 90 percent of those infected with HIV may not know they are carrying the virus.
AIDS, or the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, is caused by HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus. According to the National Institutes of Health, HIV kills or damages the cells of the body’s immune system, making it nearly impossible for the body to fight infections and some cancers. Not every person infected with HIV will develop AIDS. People with AIDS may get life-threatening diseases that are caused by viruses or bacteria that usually do not make healthy people sick.
Although there are some promising or experimental treatments for the virus, there is no cure for AIDS.
The most common way to get infected with HIV is to have sexual relations with a person who has the virus. HIV is not transmitted casually, according to the HIV/AIDS fact sheet prepared by CDC, and no one has become infected from such ordinary social contact as kisses on the cheek, hugs and handshakes, according to the CDC.
Other ways the virus can be contracted are through intravenous drug use or through contaminated blood transfusions. Babies can get the infection from their mothers if the mothers have HIV during their pregnancy. When Bridges talks to teens about HIV/AIDS prevention, he endorses the ABCs encouraged by Youth AIDS: Abstinence or Be faithful or Consistent use of safe-sex methods.
Most important, Bridges said, is to talk about AIDS and to talk about it with friends. Especially since many HIV-infected people do not know they have the virus, he encourages every person to take an AIDS test and to tell five or six friends to take one.
“A lot of people think that if you don’t talk about it, maybe it goes away. But it’s an extremely serious problem,” said Bridges, who, as an actor, appeared in the Academy Award winning movie Crash, which explores the connections people make with each other and the effect they have on each other’s everyday lives.
“I’m doing my part as a celebrity -- I know the voice that I have – the power that I have,” Bridges said.
Youth AIDS, an education and prevention initiative of Population Services International (PSI), a nongovernmental organization, uses media, pop culture, music, theater and sports to reach 600 million young people in more than 60 countries to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS.
Information on World AIDS Day is available on the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief Web site.
Additional information for teens about AIDS awareness is available on the Youth AIDS and PSI Web sites.
A fact sheet on HIV/AIDS is available on the CDC Web site.
More information about the disease is available on the Web site of the National Institutes of Health.
(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
