AIDS Consciousness on a Global Scale

Children watch performers dance to a popular Bollywood number during a skit on HIV-AIDS awareness on World AIDS Day in the city's red light district of Kamathipura in Mumbai on December 1, 2011. The Indian government estimates that somes 2.5 million Indians are living with HIV. Tens of thousands of HIV-affected households in Asia are facing 'irreversible poverty' because of the cost of living with the disease, with women and children hardest hit, a UN report said. In countries like India, Indonesia and Vietnam, HIV-affected families spend up to three times more on healthcare costs than the average, according to the report, which examined some 17,000 households across Asia.