Longevity of AIDS Patients Presents New HIV Risks

UNITED STATES:   "Longevity of AIDS Patients Presents New Risks: US"

Agence France Presse     (06.02.11)

CDC is marking the 30th anniversary of AIDS this week by calling on Americans to recommit themselves to HIV prevention, testing, and treatment efforts.

 

"Over the last three decades, prevention efforts have helped reduce new infections and treatment advances have allowed people with HIV to live longer, healthier lives," said CDC Director Dr. Thomas R. Frieden. "But as these improvements have taken place, our nation's collective sense of crisis has waned. Far too many Americans underestimate their risk of infection or believe HIV is no longer a serious health threat, but they must understand that HIV remains an incurable infection."

 

"Currently, more than 1.1 million people in the United States live with HIV, and as this number increases, so does the risk of transmission," Frieden said.

 

The agency released updated data Thursday showing that 20 percent of teenagers and adults with HIV are unaware of their infection. Approximately 1,819 of every 100,000 African Americans have HIV, 593 of Hispanics or Latinos and 238 of whites. The rate of new HIV infection for black men is six times that of white men, and about three times that of Hispanic men. Black women are 15 times more likely to have HIV compared to their white peers, and almost four times more likely than Hispanic women. Among Hispanics, the rate of new infections among men is more than double that of white men, and the rate among Latinas is almost four times that of white women.

 

Men who have sex with men continue to be disproportionately impacted by the disease, accounting for nearly 50 percent of people living with HIV.

 

"Today, the most infections are among people under 30, a new generation that has never known a time without effective HIV treatments and who may not fully understand the significant health threat HIV poses," Frieden noted.

 

To view CDC's media statement, visit http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2011/s0602_hivaids30years.html. The update, "HIV Surveillance - United States, 1981-2008," was published in the agency's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (2011;60(21):689-693).

Black MSM Focus of New HIV Campaign

UNITED STATES:   "Black MSM Focus of New HIV Campaign"

Bay Area Reporter (San Francisco)     (05.26.11):: Matthew S. Bajko

 

CDC's "Know Where You Stand" prevention campaign urges African-American men who have sex with men to learn their HIV status. Launching in 14 cities, the outreach has recently put up billboards in Oakland and San Francisco calling for black MSM to "Get Tested. Know More."

 

Banner ads touting the same message are running on several websites that target black MSM, including LOL Darian, Black Gay Chat Live, and DowneLink. The campaign also will feature prominently at Black Pride events across the country this summer.

 

CDC consulted 19 black MSM stakeholders to assist in developing the campaign, a group that ranged from community leaders to researchers. Ernest Hopkins, legislative director for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, was one of those who helped CDC "go through the literature and test campaign ideas to really begin to understand what would be needed in order to address this population in a culturally appropriate way."

 

Another consultant was Venton Jones, a D.C.-based senior program associate for communications and member education at the National Black Gay Men's Advocacy Coalition. The campaign message of "knowing your truth" is designed to get men not only to test for HIV but also take care of their health in general, he said. "It is powerful just in the title itself to know where you stand, and that is making sure you get tested and if you are positive, to start treatment," Jones noted.

 

"Know Where You Stand" is part of CDC's Act Against AIDS, which launched in 2009 as a multi-pronged, five-year campaign.

 

Data show black MSM are the group most disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS. A 2008 CDC study of 21 US cities found that 28 percent of black MSM were HIV-positive, of which 59 percent were unaware of their infection.