December 1st is World AIDS Day. Here in Canada, we have a choice about how actively to be involved in the issues of AIDS.

The rate of death from AIDS in Canada has declined dramatically. Our public education and health systems -- despite threats from cuts and privatization -- have still been able to carry out broad programs of AIDS education and treatment. Anti-retroviral drugs are freely available.

Thanks to the impressive work of AIDS activists, the stigma and mystery surrounding AIDS have largely disappeared. Although communities with high levels of poverty, homelessness and unemployment are still very vulnerable, the majority of our members do not live in daily fear of this life-threatening virus.

The AIDS crisis in Africa

In April, the Corrections Service of Canada released a report which revealed considerably higher rates of HIV infections among inmates in federal prisons than had been previously officially acknowledged. Indeed, the reported rate of 4.6 per cent, based on a 2007 survey of prisoners, was more than twice the previous official estimates, and the reported rate of hepatitis C -- a staggering 31 per cent of prisoners -- was also higher.

'If a town of that size had rates like these, it would be treated like a public health emergency,' says Seth Clarke, federal community development co-ordinator with the Prisoners' HIV/AIDS Support Action Network.