Jakarta, CNN Indonesia —
Day Vitiligo It is celebrated worldwide on June 25 every year. This day is celebrated to raise public awareness of disease rare and seemingly forgotten vitiligo.
World Vitiligo Day is usually celebrated in a different city each year. This year, Jakarta, Indonesia had the opportunity to host a virtual commemoration.
Vitiligo is a chronic disease that causes skin color to fade. Not only attacking the surface area of the skin that is visible from the outside, vitiligo can also occur in internal areas such as the mouth, eyes and hair.
In people with vitiligo, the body’s pigment cells stop producing body color or pigment. This condition causes white patches on the skin or gray hair.
It is not known exactly what makes these cells stop producing body pigment. However, the condition is thought to occur due to a number of factors such as genetic disorders, autoimmune diseases, stress, and excessive sun exposure.
Vitiligo itself is estimated to occur in 1 in 1,000 people. This disease is fairly rare, or even as if ‘forgotten’.
Unfortunately, this disease often makes the sufferer’s confidence decreases. Citing page Vitiligo Research (VR) FoundationHowever, there are still many people with vitiligo who get bullied, socially rejected, and even traumatized.
“We want June 25 to be recognized by the United Nations as World Vitiligo Day,” the VR Foundation wrote. The public can help by co-signing the petition they created for the UN Secretariat on the website 25 June.
On the page, World Vitiligo Day 2021 campaigns for the importance of eliminating discrimination against people with vitiligo. The page also calls for the importance of respecting physical differences, especially in people with vitiligo.
World Vitiligo Day itself was observed in 2011. At that time, Vitiligo Day was still known as Vitiligo Awareness Day or Vitiligo Purple Fun Day.
The day is set by the non-profit organizations focused on vitiligo, the VR Foundation (US) and VITSAF (Nigeria).
This idea first emerged from Steve Haragadon, founder of Vitiligo Friends Network, which was later welcomed and continued by vitiligo sufferer from Nigeria, Ogo Maduewesi.
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