National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day

February 7 is National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, an opportunity to promote HIV prevention, testing, and treatment among African Americans in the United States.

Our site is dedicated to cancer and the diseases that affect our community. HIV/AIDS still has  higher rates among Afro Americans than whites. People with HIV/AIDS have a high risk of developing certain cancers. 

African Americans are disproportionately affected by HIV. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)  estimates that they accounted for nearly half (44%) of all new infections in 2010, despite making up only 14% of the population. This represents a rate that is eight times as high as that of whites.

Most of these infections are in African American men, most of whom are men who have sex with men (MSM). Young black MSM, in fact, account for more new infections than any other subgroup by race/ethnicity, age, and sex.

While African American women, also continue to be far more affected by HIV than women of other races/ethnicities, recent data show early signs of an encouraging decrease in new HIV infections. CDC is cautiously optimistic that this is the beginning of a longer-term trend.

 http://www.cdc.gov/features/blackhivaidsawareness/obtained February 9, 2013