The Tens: 10 Horrifying Statistics To Know On World AIDS Day
originally posted at thewellversed.com
Today marks the 22nd Annual World AIDS Day. With urban communities and young people among the most vulnerable to contract the disease, it is important to know the statistics, know your own status, and understand how your individual actions can protect you and others from being infected.
Here is a look at the disease:
1. 33.4 million people worldwide live with HIV/AIDS
2. More than 1 million people are estimated to be living with HIV in the United States
3. 56,300 Americans become infected with HIV each year
4. African Americans, who represent 12 percent of the U.S. population, made up 52 percent of all diagnoses of HIV in 2008. African Americans encompass 46 percent of people living with HIV in the United States.
5. African Americans experienced the largest increase in rates of HIV diagnoses by ethnicity or race from 2005 to 2008—with the rate increasing from 68 per 100,000 to 74 per 100,000.
6. AIDS is the number one killer of black women between the ages of 25 and 34.
7. At least 3% of residents in DC have HIV/AIDS, which is higher than the percentage of those in West Africa, and on par with Uganda & parts of Kenya.
8. The HIV/AIDS rate in Washington D.C. is up 22% from 2006
9. Almost 7% of black men in Washington D.C. are infected with HIV/AIDS.
10. Washington, D.C. is the first city in the nation to provide free HIV testing at the Department of Motor Vehicles, with an added bonus of participants receiving $15 to defray some of their DMV cost just for getting tested.
For more information on World AIDS Day visit http://www.cdc.gov/features/worldaidsday/
To find a testing site near you visit http://www.hivtest.org/
