Black Men and Aids...

[TAC]

Stemming from another earlier post,here's an editorial that provides the statistics.

"BLACK MEN AND AIDS
Fourteen percent of Black men ages 15-29 who are "on the down-low" - have sex with other men but don't openly disclose their sexual orientation - are infected with the AIDS virus, says a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That's almost three times the rate of HIV infection among closeted men of all other races combined: Latino men who were closeted had a 6-percent rate of HIV infection while the rate among closted White men was 3 percent. Blacks make up only 12 percent of the population, yet now account for more than half of estimated new HIV infections each year. -v.a." 6/2003 Essence

Peace
TAC

[ May 11, 2003, 10:15 AM: Message edited by: TAC ]

[DJ Timmy Richardson]

And even more shocking




How many people in Africa are infected with HIV/AIDS ?


Africa continues to dwarf the rest of the world in how the region has been affected by AIDS. Africa is home to 70% of the adults and 80% of the children living with HIV in the world. The estimated number of newly infected adults and children in Africa reached 3.5 million at the end of 2001. It has also been estimated that 28.5 million adults and children were living with HIV/AIDS in Africa by the end of the year. AIDS deaths totalled 3 million globally in 2001, and of the global total 2.2 million AIDS deaths occurred in Africa.
In sub-Saharan Africa HIV is now deadlier than war itself. In 1998, 200,000 Africans died in war, but more than 2 million died of AIDS. AIDS has become a full-blown development crisis. Its social and economic consequences are felt widely not only in health but in education, industry, agriculture, transport, human resources and the economy in general.

The overall incidence of HIV infection in Africa does however now appear to be stabilising. Because the long-standing African epidemics have already reached large numbers of people whose behaviour exposes them to HIV, and because effective prevention measures in some countries have enabled people to reduce their risk of exposure, the annual number of new infections has stabilised or even fallen in many countries. These decreases have now begun to balance out the still-rising infection rates in other parts of Africa, particularly the southern part of the continent. Overall, the total of 3.5 million infected people in 2001 was slightly less than the regional total of 3.8 million in 2000. But this trend will not continue if countries such as Nigeria begin experiencing a rapid increase