Today Is World AIDS Day

HIV/AIDS Statistics for the United States:

• There are approximately 1.1 million people living with HIV/AIDS in the U.S.

• It is estimated that almost one-fifth of those people don’t know they have it.

• Since the start of the AIDS epidemic, 1.7 million Americans have been infected with HIV and more than 650,000 have died of AIDS.

• An estimated 50,000 new HIV infections occur in the U.S. each year.

• Men who have sex with men (MSM) account for the majority of new HIV/AIDS diagnoses although MSM comprise only around 4% of the U.S. male population.

• New HIV diagnoses among MSM were more than 44 times higher than among other men and more than 40 times higher than women in 2008.

• African Americans accounted for 47% of new HIV infections diagnosed in 2011, although they comprise only 14% of the population.

• The HIV infection rate among African American women is nearly four times higher than the rate among white women.

• The infection rate among Latinos was three times higher than the rate among whites in 2010.

• In 2011, more than 20% of people diagnosed with HIV in the U.S. were women.

• The vast majority of newly diagnosed HIV-positive women contracted the virus through heterosexual sex.

• In 2010, 31% of all new infections occurred among people aged 25–34, followed by individuals aged 13–24 at 26%.

What can you do?

Get.Tested. And make sure any, and every, sexual partner you have gets tested, too.

"When I was tested for the second time and found out I was HIV positive, I thought my world was going to collapse and cave in but thankfully this test actually saved my life. The sooner you find out whether you are positive (or negative), the sooner you can start your combination therapy and get the virus under control and live your life normally."

—Andy Bell, of Erasure, who learned he was HIV+ in 1998.