World AIDS Day

It’s good to see that World AIDS Day is gaining a higher and higher profile in Russia. One of the most unusual ways I’ve seen to promote the day, in Russia or any other country, is Miss Positive 2005, a beauty contest for HIV Positive women.

“It sounds absurd, someone may say this idea is offensive, but why not hold this beauty contest among HIV-positive girls,” [Russia’s chief sanitary official Gennady] Onishchennko said at a press conference.

I have to say that my first reaction was to condemn this is a tasteless, or at best a misguided, stunt, but reading this Moscow Times report it seems that the event was portrayed quite sensitively.

The Miss Positive beauty contest was initiated by Shagi, or Steps, a magazine for HIV-positive people, and conducted anonymously over the Internet. Three winners were chosen on Nov. 16, but only one, 24-year-old Svetlana Izambayeva, agreed to attend Thursday’s awards ceremony.

“At first, it was very difficult to make up my mind to participate in the contest,” said Izambayeva, a native of the Chuvashia republic who was diagnosed with HIV in 2002 after a casual sexual encounter.

“But then I realized that my desire to speak and relate openly to the world around me could help thousands of people come to terms with their own fears,” she said in a statement. “I know very well that the fight against HIV/AIDS should not turn into a fight against people living with HIV.”

On balance, with the HIV/AIDS situation as serious as it is in Russia, anything which brings public attention to those who suffer from the disease, showing them in a positive light, has to be a good thing.

Tagged as: Medical