Thousands of candles lit in Amsterdam ArenA for World Aids Day

Ten thousand candles are lit in the Amsterdam ArenA on Tuesday for World Aids Day. This is done on the initiative of Stop Aids Now to commemorate the more than a million people who die from the disease every year.

World Aids Day, every year on December 1st, is also being commemorated in other parts of the capital. As per tradition, dance festival LoveDance will be held in the Amsterdam Paradiso on Tuesday evening, according to NU. This year's theme is "lust". "The lust to love and to celebrate life but also the lust to share each other's love in freedom", according to the organization.

There is also a large conference in the Beurs van Berlage with some 500 healthcare professionals attending.

Health institutions all over the country are opening their doors to people who want to take an HIV test anonymously.

According to Stop Aids Now, there are 1.2 million Aids deaths every year. Every year 2 million people are diagnosed with HIV infections. And almost 37 million people are living with HIV, not even half of them having access to life saving drugs. "Inadequate health care, poverty and ignorance a re major causes, but in recent years the epidemic is manly growing due to the inequality between men and women, sexual violence and the taboo on sex in many countries. Among girls and young women, Aids is the number one cause of death world wide."