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September 27 Is National Gay Men's HIV/AIDS Awareness Day

Tuesday, September 27, is National Gay Men's HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (NGMHAAD), a day of action to call attention to the disproportionate effect of the epidemic on gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men.

NGMHAAD Resources

• Twitter: #NGMHAAD
• AIDS.gov: National Gay Men's HIV/AIDS Awareness Day
• CDC: National Gay Men's HIV/AIDS Awareness Day
• CDC: HIV Among Gay and Bisexual Men
• Get Tested: National HIV, STD, and Hepatitis Testing Resources
• NIH: National Gay Men's HIV/AIDS Awareness Day

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), men who have sex with men account more than half of the 1.2 million people living with HIV in the U.S. and two-thirds of all new diagnoses each year, despite making up only about 2% of the total population.

Young black gay and bi men are the most heavily affected by the epidemic. According to one estimate, if current trends continue in 6 gay and men who have sex with men will be diagnosed with HIV in their lifetime, including as many as half of all black gay men and a quarter of Latino gay men.

Fortunately, new biomedical prevention approaches, including antiretroviral treatment-as-prevention and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) have the potential to turn these trends around.

Researchers with Gilead Sciences -- maker of the only approved PrEP drug, Truvada (tenofovir/emtricitabine) -- recently reported that a pharmacy survey found that more than 79,000 people in the U.S. had started PrEP, but most experts think this is an underestimate. In early adopter cities the numbers are much higher than the survey suggests; in San Francisco a recent informal survey of large PrEP providers suggested that some 20% of gay and bi men in the city have used PrEP.

The pharmacy survey found, however, that the groups with the highest rates of HIV infection were not as likely to receive PrEP, underlining the need to tackle stigma, poverty, and other barriers to getting HIV prevention and treatment to the people who need them most.

9/22/16

Source

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. HIV Among Gay and Bisexual Men. Updated September 19, 2016.