CDC Addresses
Black AIDS Awareness Day

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging African-Americans to take part in a three-point pledge to fight HIV/AIDS for Black AIDS Awareness Day on February 7.

In a statement released Wednesday, Dr. Kevin Fenton -- the CDC's director of the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention -- is urging the black population "to ACT" -- through increased Awareness, Communication, and Testing -- against HIV.

"There is a great deal of work to be done," Fenton wrote in the statement. "But we are also encouraged by hopeful signs in recent years, from dramatic reductions in the number of babies born with HIV to evidence of reductions in new HIV infections among African-American women."

African-Americans account for roughly half of the more than 1 million people living with HIV in the United States -- while only representing 13% of the general population.

According to the CDC, African-American men have the highest rate of HIV infection in the country. In 2005, the rate of HIV diagnosis among black men was nearly seven times higher than that of white men. Black gay and bisexual men represented more than half of all diagnoses. African-American women's rate of infection was more than 20 times that of white women that year. (The Advocate)