Black Gay Men Bear Brunt of US HIV Epidemic
September 13, 2008 by James Hipps
From an article posted in the New York Blade:
After announcing last month that the annual number of HIV infections in the U.S. is 40 percent higher than previously thought, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention confirmed this morning in a conference call with reporters that young black gay and bisexual men are the population seeing the highest rates of new HIV infections.
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| Kevin Fenton, director of HIV/AIDS division at the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, called new HIV incidence data about black gay men ‘alarming.’ (Photo courtesy CDC) | ||
Of the more than 56,000 Americans diagnosed with HIV in 2006, 72 percent were gay and bisexual men; of those men, 46 percent were white, 35 percent were black and 19 percent were Latino.
But CDC officials announced “there were more new HIV infections in young black [gay and bisexual] men aged 13-29 than any other age or racial group” of gay men.
Read the rest by clicking here.
I wanted to just include a small portion of an article from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel of which your article reminded me. I wanted to share it to supplement your national picture with what is even a worse situation in some individual cities and communities.
1 in 22 gay, bisexual men in Florida has HIV, study says
BY BOB LaMENDOLA | South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Originally published 07:30 a.m., November 14, 2007
Hoping to call attention to the extent of HIV/AIDS among gay men, state health officials said Tuesday that an estimated one in 22 gay and bisexual men in Florida had the virus last year, an infection rate that dwarfs any other group.
HIV has struck some areas of the gay community even harder, with rates as high as 1 in 11 among gay white men in Broward County, 1 in 13 gay black men in Palm Beach County and 1 in 12 gay Hispanic men in Miami-Dade County, officials said. By comparison, in the least affected group, 1 in 1,625 white women had the virus.
AIDS activists who gathered in Wilton Manors to hear the new report challenged the methods behind the new estimate, but universally agreed the virus is not declining among gays as hoped. They called on officials and one another to find new ways to stress the message of safe sex.
The entire article is available from Sun-Sentinel’s website.