Statistics paint sobering picture on World AIDS Day

(These statistics come directly from the Human Rights Campaign's web site. To them I can only add this: Please, please, please be careful and treat yourselves and your partners with respect.)

Dec. 1, 2006, marks World AIDS Day, a time for people around the world to unite in the fight against HIV and AIDS. Twenty-five years have passed since the first AIDS case was diagnosed — and the latest statistics in the United States are staggering. Take a look:

• Forty thousand people become infected with HIV every year in the United States.
• HIV is the leading cause of death worldwide among those ages 15-59.
• Among those living with AIDS in the United States, approximately one-third to one-half are either homeless or at imminent risk of homelessness.
• HIV/AIDS is now the leading cause of death for African-American women age 25-34.
• More than half of all Americans who received an HIV/AIDS diagnosis in 2004 were men who had sex with men. Nearly 20,000 men who had sex with men received a diagnosis of HIV/AIDS,* accounting for 70 percent of all male adults and adolescents and 51 percent of all people receiving an HIV/AIDS diagnosis that year.
• Men who had sex with men accounted for 70 percent of all estimated HIV infections among male adults and adolescents in 2004,* even though only about 5 to 7 percent of male adults and adolescents in the United States identify themselves as men who have sex with men.
• HIV infections among men who have sex with men are on the rise. The number of HIV diagnoses for men who had sex with men decreased during the 1980s and 1990s, but recent data show an increase in HIV diagnoses for this group.
• The number of HIV/AIDS diagnoses among men who had sex with men increased 8 percent from 2003 to 2004.
• Men of color who have sex with men, particularly African-American men who have sex with men, are at particularly high risk. In June 2005, in five major U.S. cities (Baltimore, Los Angeles, New York City, Miami and San Francisco), 46 percent of African-American men who had sex with men were HIV-positive.
• Of HIV infection cases reported in 2001 among men ages 13 to 19, 46 percent occurred in men who have sex with men.
• Young men who have sex with men are increasingly unaware of their HIV status. In a recent study, 77 percent of those who tested HIV-positive mistakenly believed that they were not infected. Young African-American men who had sex with men were especially likely to be unaware of their infection — approximately nine out of 10 young African-American men who have sex with men, compared to six out of 10 young white men who have sex with men. Of the men who tested positive, most (74 percent) had previously tested negative for HIV infection, and 59 percent believed that they were at low or very low risk.

* Based on data from the 35 areas with long-term, confidential name-based HIV reporting.

Sources: The Centers for Disease Control, Advocates for Youth, Kaiser Family Foundation, HRSA/Department of Health and Human Services.