Listen Live
WERE AM Mobile App 2020

LISTEN LIVE. LIKE US ON FACEBOOK. FOLLOW US ON TWITTER

News Talk Cleveland Featured Video
CLOSE

On the eve of World AIDS Day, the troubling incidence of AIDS among African- American women serves as a reminder of how far we must travel to effectively manage this disease, writes Dr. Sam Ho at BuffaloNews.com.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that nearly half of the more than 1 million Americans living with HIV/AIDS are African- American and that 40 percent of the nearly 563,000 Americans with AIDS who died in 2007 were black.

Among all women in the United States living with HIV/AIDS, 64 percent are African-American. In fact, the rate of AIDS diagnosis for African-American women nationwide is 22 times the rate for white women.

This problem is more pronounced in places like Washington, D. C., where the prevalence of HIV and AIDS among African- American women rivals that of Nigeria.

What’s most frustrating about all this is that AIDS is generally preventable through changes in behavior, increased use of safer-sex practices, testing, basic health care and other forms of prevention.

Sadly, too many people — especially African-American women and young people — are not getting the message. According to the CDC, the United States has the highest rate of teenage infection in the developed world. Every hour, two Americans between the ages of 13 and 24 contract HIV.

Read full story.

Article courtesy of: eurweb.com