HIV Risk in US Higher Than Thought

April 08, 2009

According to a new study, a person in the United States gets infected with HIV every 91/2 minutes. That turns into about 56,000 people each year or 1.1 million people in the US overall. About 21% of them don't know they are infected (about 300,000 people) so they have a higher chance of giving it to others. About 14,000 people in the US die of HIV each year according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta.

For that reason, the CDC is going to start advertising the groups of people at highest risk of getting the disease. African-Americans are 12% of the US population, but they get nearly half of all the new cases of HIV and AIDS each year. According to the Boston Globe, one in every 16 African-American men and 1 in every 30 African-American women will become infected with HIV during their lifetime.

A new website will focus on safe sex and using condoms every time they have sex to protect them from getting HIV. Act Against Aids is the first national campaign against HIV since 1995.

HealthRock has created several songs to help against this battle. If you are interested in learning more about these songs, contact DocRock at mseibelmd@healthrock.com.