September 18 National HIV/AIDS and Aging Awareness Day, launched by the AIDS Institute in 2008. It aims to raise awareness of the challenges faced by aging populations who live with HIV, which include: HIV prevention, treatment, and care; and HIV-related comorbidities, coinfections, and other complications (CCC).

Complex, multi-layered health care systems can sometimes stray from patient safety considerations. Thus, International Patient Safety Day, observed on September 17, reminds us that patient safety is up to all of us. All relevant stakeholders in our health care process —patients, doctors, administrators — need to work together to ensure the safe delivery of health care.

September 13 has been dubbed “National Celiac Disease Awareness Day” in honor of the doctor who identified a link between celiac disease and diet. Dr. Samuel Gee, a leader in celiac disease research, was born on Sept. 13, 1839.

Each year, the World Association for Sexual Health (WAS) celebrates World Sexual Health Day on September 4th. This year’s theme is “Turn it on: Sexual health in a digital world”, which inspires the need to awaken awareness of sexual health rights, while also recognizing the harms and violations of sexual rights in the digital sphere.

Today is World Lung Cancer Day, providing an opportunity to raise awareness about the risk factors and patients’ outcomes of this deadly and debilitating disease and review the prevention measures and treatment options that help reduce the global burden. And since severe respiratory symptoms mark Covid-19, lung cancer is an aggravating factor for the virus.

World Hepatitis Day (WHD) is recognized every July 28th, the birth date of Dr. Baruch Blumberg, who discovered the hepatitis B virus in 1967, and developed the first vaccine in 1969. These achievements led up to Dr. Blumberg winning the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1976.

Today is World Vitiligo Day, with its first observance in 2011 and has since become an annual, global event. The campaign was born from the determination of non-profit organizations VR Foundation (USA) and VITSAF (Nigeria) and their supporters across the world to bring this “forgotten” disease into the public eye and to shine a light on challenges faced by those suffering from vitiligo.

World Sickle Cell Day is a United Nations recognized day to raise sickle cell awareness nationally and internationally. On December 22, 2008, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution that acknowledges sickle cell disease as a public health problem and “one of the world’s foremost genetic diseases.”

World Brain Tumor Day is observed on 8 June to raise awareness and educate people about brain tumors and pay tribute to brain tumor patients and their families.

From its small beginnings as a grassroots survivorship movement in 1987, National Cancer Survivors Day is now one of the largest cancer survivor celebrations in the world.  Today marks the 34th annual National Cancer Survivors Day.