It was 30 years ago that the first campaign was launched in Switzerland to inform the public about a new illness that was making the headlines: Aids. (SRF/swissinfo.ch)
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30 años de explícitas escenas sexuales, ¡con condón!
At the time, a street survey conducted by Swiss public television showed how little people knew about the immune deficiency syndrome: some thought it was caused by environmental pollution; others thought you could catch it by kissing.
The Aids campaign launched in Switzerland in 1987 was unique in Europe in that rather than making people afraid, it sought to explain how people could protect themselves. The boldness of this and subsequent campaigns launched by the Federal Office of Public Health shocked the public initially with their overt sexual references, but people gradually became used to seeing posters of condoms.
There are currently around 20,000 people in Switzerland living with HIV. Worldwide, the figure is 36.7 million (2015 figures: UNAIDS)
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Switzerland is believed to be the only country to have kept Aids awareness campaigns running constantly over 25 years. But despite that there are currently 25,000 people living with HIV in Switzerland, proportionately more per head of population than in France and Germany. In France, an estimated 150,000 are infected, and in Germany 67,000 people.…
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here. Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.