According to a new report out this week, the great majority of HIV-positive Americans do not have the disease under control.
In announcing the data, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also launched a new national awareness campaign to encourage testing, especially among those hardest hit by the epidemic.
CDC’s Vital Signs report revealed that approximately three out of four people with the disease in this country are not adequately managing the virus. Those numbers are fueled by the fact that about one in five HIV-positive Americans are unaware that they are infected, and just over half of those who know their status are receiving ongoing medical treatment.
The report, released shortly before World AIDS Day, found that just 28 percent of those with the disease have a suppressed viral load. However, that figure jumps to 77 percent for those who are in medical care and taking antiretrovirals.
Men who have sex with men (MSM) are less likely than heterosexual individuals to both know their status and seek care, the CDC said, and black MSM are disproportionately affected by the disease.
To contend with those statistics, the CDC this week launched a campaign targeted toward black MSM.
“Testing Makes Us Stronger” seeks to increase the number of black MSM aware of their status and encourage better access to medical care for those who are positive.
The campaign ads, which feature both African-American individuals and same-sex couples, will be featured in national print and online media outlets, at Pride events throughout the country and will be displayed on transit advertising in Atlanta, Baltimore, Houston, New York City, Oakland, Calif., and Washington, D.C.
There will also be a website and Facebook page for the campaign.
“Black gay and bisexual men across the country are already doing many of the right things to protect themselves, but more need to make HIV testing a regular part of their lives,” said Dr. Kevin Fenton, director of CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and Tuberculosis Prevention. “‘Testing Makes Us Stronger’ was designed by black gay men for black gay men and strives to communicate the power of knowing your HIV status as a first step toward staying healthy.”
Gary Bell, executive director of BEBASHI, an HIV/AIDS service organization that focuses on the African-American community in the Philadelphia area, said the effort is critical.
“It’s very needed,” Bell said. “Despite our best efforts — and all of us have been working very hard at this — the one area where we’ve seen almost no real success is in preventing new infections, particularly in young African-American MSM. It’s been an uphill battle for a long time now, and anything that can be done to ratchet up that response is very, very needed.”
Bell noted that, while “Testing Makes Us Stronger” is likely to be effective in reaching some community members, continued efforts are needed to take the message to other segments of the population.
“The key is going to be getting to the people who are hardest to reach, which are often men who are non-gay-identified, who we have referred to as ‘down-low.’ Those are the toughest people to reach out to and we need more attention paid to that issue. But right now, there’s clearly not enough social marketing directed at this issue, and we know that it does work, so I’m sure that this is going to be able to reach some people.”
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].