On November 15, 2013, a popular TV host, Angus Guo, and Ramona, the guest host of a gay-friendly show “Rainbow Queen”, which is part of a radio program “Over-excited” (人來瘋) sponsored by the Broadcasting Corporation of China, together urged the public to pay attention to raising AIDS prevention awareness among adolescents. Guo and Ramona sang along with singers from two Rock Records bands, io and FUN4, and the members of popular music clubs at Taipei Municipal Song-Shan Senior High School and National BanChiao Senior High School at the event "Love Rock'n Roll & Fight AIDS", which took place in Taipei Municipal Nei-hu High School (NHSH) in order to stress the importance of safe sex and show their support for HIV/AIDS patients.
This year, the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control (Taiwan CDC) sponsored three rock concerts for teens to enhance their awareness about HIV/AIDS prevention, which were respectively held in northern, central and southern Taiwan. The last rock party took place in Nei-hu High School (NHSH). Ramona, a NHSH alumnus, was invited to host the party with Angus Kuo. They sang a song “Solution”. which was written to promote awareness of HIV/AIDS prevention, together with rock singers from io and FUN4 and the members of popular music clubs at three senior high schools and shouted slogans such as “Reverse HIV/AIDS trends” and “We can get to zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination, and zero AIDS-related deaths”. The exciting rock concert continued for over 2 hours, showing the world that AIDS prevention campaign can reach its target audience through rock music.
Based on statistics compiled by Taiwan CDC, as of October 2013, the cumulative number of reported HIV infections is 26,148, of which 3,651 people (13.96%) reside in Taipei City. In the past four years (2010-2013), 292 young people aged between 15 and 24 were newly diagnosed with HIV infections in Taipei City, accounting for 22.22% of the total new HIV infections (292/1314) during the period. Additionally, unsafe sex was the major cause of those new HIV infections, thus underscoring the importance of raising awareness about HIV-AIDS prevention among adolescents.
Taiwan CDC pointed out that HIV has mainly been transmitted through unprotected sex. HIV cannot be spread by casual contacts with a HIV-positive person such as sharing the same classroom, eating the same food, handshaking and hugging. The simplest way to reduce the risk of HIV infection is to limit exposure to risk factors such as unsupervised “house parties”, sex parties, having sex with multiple partners or partners of unknown HIV status. If you want to have sex, use condoms correctly every time.
In order to educate more young students to practice safe sex and use condoms, Taiwan CDC has launched an online game called "Safe Sex and Safe Singing". Participants may acquire correct knowledge and information about HIV/AIDS prevention in this game, which is now available until December 10, 2013. To play the game, please visit: 2013aids. Follow three simple steps--write down what you want to tell your friends, pick your favorite song and publish the post on your facebook wall, you could be the winner of some amazing prizes such as a 2.5-inch 1TB mobile hard drive and some supermarket gift vouchers.