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National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day

February 7, is National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day and today marks the 11th year since the NBHAA was inaugurated by the CDC and five national organizations to bring awareness and provide help in the African American community for this crippling disease.

Though progress has been made, the numbers of  HIV/AIDS cases are still strikingly swayed in the black community.

African Americans make up about 14 percent of the U.S. population but account for half of new HIV diagnoses, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

African-Americans face the most severe burden of HIV in the United States, according to the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At the end of 2007, blacks accounted for almost half – 46 percent – of people living with a diagnosis of HIV infection in the 37 states and five U.S.-dependent areas with long-term, confidential, name-based HIV reporting.

In 2006, African-Americans accounted for 45 percent of new infections in the 50 states and the District of Columbia, the CDC reports.

New HIV infections among blacks overall have been roughly stable since the early 1990s, compared with other races and ethnicities, but they continue to account for a higher proportion of cases at all stages of HIV—from new infections to deaths.

Go Get Tested!

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