Health: September 27 is National Gay Men’s HIV/AIDS Awareness Day
(Photo Credits: CDC.gov)
Today—September 27, 2018—marks the National Gay Men’s HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (NGMHAAD).
On this day each year, we call attention to “the ongoing and disproportionate impact of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) on gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM) in the United States.” In addition, the community is also encouraged to educate themselves on the basics of HIV prevention, where to go in order to get tested and know your status (CDC has a campaign called Doing It), and where to get treatment in case they’ve tested HIV positive.
In fact, this year’s theme—The Conversation About HIV Is Changing—pertains to the “advances in science that have given us powerful tools to help end new HIV infections in the United States.” According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one such tool is HIV treatment because taking it as prescribed keeps people with HIV healthy and it also reduce or suppress their viral load to undetectable levels. Undetectable viral load, CDC says, means there is “effectively no risk of transmitting HIV through sex to HIV-negative partners.”
As to where to get tested, HIV.gov has a tool called HIV Testing Sites & Care Services Locator. With this link, you can search for testing services, housing providers, health centers, and other service and care providers near you. Alternatively, you can also download the app from iTunes store and Google Play.
While gay and bisexual men comprise about 2 percent of the U.S. population only, CDC reported that in 2014, they accounted for 70 percent of new HIV infections. Moreover, they also account for “55 percent or 10,047 of people who received an AIDS diagnosis. Of those men, 39 percent were African American, 31 percent were white, and 24 percent were Hispanic/Latino.”
For more information on HIV and AIDS among gay and bisexual men, check out the links provided below.
From CDC
From AIDSinfo
From the National Library of Medicine’s AIDSource
If I may take a moment: while ‘undetectable’ means there is minimal chance of infectivity, I do believe that such status prevents the donation of blood or the gifting of organs to perspective donors?
HIV is a virus and viruses infect the ganglia of the nerves and such viscera as the heart, pancreas, kidneys, liver and intestines?
HIV can be detected in saliva, semen, feces, urine and prostate fluid, too…although quantity is suspect. Also, studies are being conducted that although ‘undetectable’ is what it is, HIV is chronic and progressive; eventually, the virus generally wins in-the-end.
call me old fashioned, but sometimes it’s better to just jo to hot porn or actually take your time to meet the guy, get tested together. prep isn’t a cure, more like a prevention tool, but it doesn’t cover other std’s.
Yeah, I think my love/sex-life is kaput, I mean, I’m here in So-Florida, the mindsets (for lack of a better description), STD/STi’s/HIV is just getting worse and worse, here anyway, it seems. I’m just glad, that I’m no longer in my 20’s-30’s ’cause my libido was just ridiculous then. And I REALLY feel quite sad for the younger guys in that aforementioned age group.
My husband tested poz when he was admitted to the Hospital with Double pnuemonia at in 2009 at that time we were not able to get married. So even though i had power of attorney for his medical attention we had issues with the Drs not wanting to discuss it in front of me.Yes is scared the the shit out of me at first because he was in full fledge AIDS. Luckily he ended up with a great Specialist that explained it all to us and got him healthy again.It didnt take him long to become undetectable.I started getting tested every six months and to this day Im still Neg I thought i would eventually test poz myself but still havent.My concern is why isnt someone doing something to reduce the prices of Meds if we didnt have INS we couldnt afford them you cant tell me the Pharmasuticals can do something to reduce these Meds even with INS we have to pay $350 a month for a deductable if we didnt have INS it would be $3200 a month
Earl, thank you, thank you, thank you!
I was just wondering, why, are there no black men my age (late 40’s-60’s) here in South Florida, that are alleging the usage PRep; too expensive, as a direct result, they’re just not here. . . . any longer? Because its like I’m one of the few online, period, here in Broward county Florida.
I was curious, so I looked for black men, specifically, on PRep: none here in Florida, two in NYC, 3 in Chicago, wow, what an eye-opener! There’s all kinds of white guys the allege their usage;
more affluent, of course.
The younger black men, they’re not on it either (according to their profiles), so, if they’re going to get infected, then what happens if they can’t afford it? $350 w/insurance, they can barely afford rent, let alone afford these meds to keep them alive! What happens when there’s no Obama-care, ’cause the don’t have the kinds of jobs that are going to pay them health insurance.
So, is this another epidemic, where there’s the next level of an acual genocide, basically? All done rather quietly and hushed, turn a blind eye and just let it happen?
The sad reality of all of this is: why are people becoming ‘positive’? With all the empirical knowledge already known about transmission, why do people engage in barebacking?
Does the brain ever usurp the genitals? It is inane for anyone to test ‘positive’ in the last 18 years of this new century. Do we ever learn that we are responsible for what we do bipedal and repository?
Forrest Gump had it only half-right: “Stupid Is As Stupid Does.” I say: “Stupid Are As Stupid Do.”
Totally agree. “Awareness” is a phrase used by people who want to be able to say “we did something”, but in the end there’s often no results. Franky, how few people are not “aware” of HIV/AIDS and how they and other STDs are transmitted? Some, but most people are fully “aware”.
Infection rates among men who have sex with men are well beyond staggering due to (most often) irresponsible behavior with random hookups and unprotected sex. Yet, the “Community” calls for understanding … no judgement … no stigma … a pass for such behavior. The “Community” needs to get its head out of its ass … and its members need to cease having unprotected sex with random individuals.
The results will be staggering … in a good way!
Kudos! I’ve been saying this very thing, for the longest time in many of these threads on here, and in my profiles. All of this 90’s era “its raining men” shit has got to stop, hell, man, its raining infected people, still, doing what they’ve been doing which got them in the circumstance that they’re presently in! Time for a “new attitude,” how about that; in the approach of how gay men interact with each other; gotta quit throwing caution to the wind and depending on your healthcare plan to just give you a pill. Which, by the way, just makes you ‘dependent’ because you’re not responsible for your own insatiable lusts, yet, you want to be respected and seen as equals, sane, moral, really?
I would think, during a crisis such as HIV, first of all, not to mention the other STD’s/STI’s rates on the rise; that yes, you would curb some of these bad habits,
that are really, like drug addictions.