World AIDS Day is a perfect occasion for everyone to remember that health means everything. But how can we be healthy in a world where HIV virus makes so many victims? It is a known fact that there are now 33.2 million people living with HIV, including 2.5 million children. During 2007 some 2.5 million people became newly infected with the virus. Around half of all people who become infected with HIV do so before they are 25 and are killed by AIDS before they are 35.

Given the circumstances, what can we do to stay away from this fatal infection? This is what World AIDS Day is trying to teach us. First of all, appropriate sexual health education needs to be provided to young people before they reach an age where they become sexually active. Having unprotected sexual relationships has us vulnerable to HIV virus more than we can possibly imagine. HIV prevention initiatives need to be increased, people across the world need to be made aware of the dangers, the risks, and the ways they can protect themselves. Condom promotion and supply needs to be increased.

Second of all, people at high risk of infection should be tested routinely. The standard HIV test looks for antibodies in a person’s blood. When HIV (which is a virus) enters a person's body, special proteins are produced. These are called antibodies. Antibodies are the body's response to an infection. So if a person has antibodies to HIV in their blood, it means they have been infected with HIV.

Most people develop detectable HIV antibodies within 6 to 12 weeks of infection. In very rare cases, it can take up to 6 months. It is exceedingly unlikely that someone would take longer than 6 months to develop antibodies.

Getting tested earlier than 3 months may result in an unclear test result, as an infected person may not yet have developed antibodies to HIV. The time between infection and the development of antibodies is called the window period. During the window period people infected with HIV will not yet have antibodies in their blood that can be detected by an HIV test. However, the person may already have high levels of HIV in their blood, sexual fluids or breast milk.

It is important that you are not exposed to further risk of getting infected with HIV during the window period. The test is only accurate if there are no other exposures between the time of possible exposure to HIV and testing.

A negative test at three months will almost always mean a person is not infected with HIV. If an individual's test is still negative at six months and they have not had unprotected sex or shared needles again in the meantime, it means that they do not have HIV, and will not therefore go on to develop AIDS.

The only way to know for sure whether you are infected with HIV is to have an HIV antibody test. It is not possible to tell from any symptoms.

Testing for HIV is important because once you know that you’re infected you can take further measures to protect others from getting infected and you can benefit from treatment right away. Recent studies have shown that starting treatment with antiretroviral drug right after you learnt about your infection increases your survival chances by 30 percent.

If you know you’re at risk, don’t hesitate! Get tested!