CNN iReport

World AIDS Day was December 1st and so I join my voice along with thousands of others to bring to the surface the topic of HIV/AIDS.

Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital. ~Aaron Levenstein

Bear with me here I tend to like to look at bikini's and here's what I found when I started looking into what Africa is wearing:

• 22 million people in Africa were living with HIV at the end of 2007 that is more people than the entire populations of:

o Arizona (6.5m)

o Nevada (2.5m)

o Utah (2.5m)

o New Mexico (1.9m)

o Colorado (4.7m)

o Wyoming (.5m)

o Idaho (1.5m)

o and Montana (.9m) combined.

Think about that for a moment. Conceiveably the mid section of the Western United States infected with HIV/AIDS.

• An additional 1.9 million (est.) were infected with HIV during that year.

• 1.5 million people lost their lives due to AIDS, in Africa, in 2007.

Think about those two statistics. 1.9 million, the entire population of New Mexico infected annually. Not eye opening? What about the 1.5 million people who die annually?, everyone in Idaho - dead.

It's sad, right? But it's just the adults who get HIV/AIDS, right? People who are sharing drugs or engaging in unsafe sex or unprotected sex? Right? It's people who are undereducated and just don't get the message, right? It's their own fault.

No. It's not. In fact the children are one of the greatest at risk groups in Africa:

• Nearly 2 million children in sub-Saharan Africa were living with HIV at the end of 2007.

• Representing more than 85% of all children living with HIV worldwide.

• The vast majority of these children will have become infected with HIV during pregnancy or through breastfeeding when they are babies

In many parts of Africa, as elsewhere in the world, the AIDS epidemic is aggravated by social and economic inequalities between men and women. Females commonly face discrimination in terms of access to education, employment, credit, health care, land and inheritance. These factors can all put women in a position where they are particularly vulnerable to HIV infection. In sub-Saharan Africa, around 59% of those living with HIV are female.

AIDS is erasing decades of progress made in extending life expectancy. Millions of adults are dying from AIDS while they are still young.

One last Statistical Fact to look at under the Bikini of Africa:

• Life expectancy in Sub-Saharan Africa is 47

• Life expectancy in the United States is 77.8 years.

Think about it, just think. Then use the voice you have been given, go out and SCREAM! about something you care about, scream for those who need your voice.