National Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day (NYHAAD) educates the public about the impact of HIV/AIDS on youth and highlights the work youth do to strengthen the fight against the HIV/AIDS epidemic. It is observed each year on April 10 and was created in 2013. In the United States, 1 in 5 new HIV diagnoses were among young people aged 13-24 years. Getting tested for HIV is an important step toward prevention; however, testing rates among high school students remain...
About one in every six people diagnosed last year in Virginia was age 50 or older. It’s creating new challenges for doctors, and the dating scene for seniors. ...
This National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (NWGHAAD), the Office on Women’s Health wants everyone to make the best choices when it comes to protecting their health. Abstinence is the best way to avoid HIV, but if you decide to have sex, there are steps you can take to protect yourself and others from HIV. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that at the end of 2014, 23% of all people living with HIV in the...
The Trump administration is launching a campaign to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic by the year 2030. According to the CDC, more than 1 million people have HIV in the U.S., with about two-thirds of new infections occurring in gay or bisexual men. The president’s plan would focus on 48 U.S. counties where the most new infections occur, which are primarily in the South. Several Hampton Roads health districts are teaming up to try and stop the spread of HIV in the...
Today is National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (NBHAAD). Observed each year on February 7th, NBHAAD serves as an opportunity to highlight the need for increased HIV education, testing, community involvement and treatment in Black/African-American communities. This year’s NBHAAD theme, “Together for Love: Stop HIV Stigma”, highlights the messages of the Act Against AIDS, Let’s Stop HIV Together campaign. Let’s Stop HIV Together raises awareness that we all have a role to play in stopping HIV stigma. HIV continues to impact the health...
Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner (D-Va.) have announced in a joint news release that more than $5 milllion will be made available for HIV treatment and prevention services in Norfolk. The funding will be provided through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. “We are pleased to announce federal funding to help those with HIV in Norfolk get the care they deserve,” the senators said in a statement. The grant was awarded to the Mermaid city through HHS’s HIV Emergency Relief Project...
New results are raising hopes for easing one challenge of living with HIV: the need to take daily pills for life, both to ward off AIDS and to lower the risk of transmitting the virus to others. Missing doses can also foster the emergence of HIV strains with drug resistance, a danger both to the person receiving treatment and, if those strains spread, to entire populations. Now, a large-scale study has shown over 48 weeks that monthly injections of two...
PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis, is a once-daily pill that can reduce your chance of getting HIV by more than 90%. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 1.1 million people in the United States may benefit from taking PrEP, but only 7% were prescribed it in 2016. Spreading awareness about PrEP is important, especially here in the South where the need for prevention methods is higher than the amount of people using them. While more...
The 30th annual World AIDS Day is taking place December 1, 2018 to raise awareness about the disease and the fight against HIV infection. The day also shows support for those living with HIV, and remembers those who have lost their lives to an AIDS-related illness. The first ever global health day dedicated to AIDS awareness took place in 1988, according to the World AIDS Day Campaign. Today, there are an estimated 36.7 million people living with an HIV infection globally. The...
A promising HIV vaccine candidate demonstrated its power by neutralizing HIV strains in mice, guinea pigs and monkeys, and is almost ready for human testing. The findings were published on June 4th in the journal Nature Medicine, and it was led by investigators from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which falls under the National Institutes of Health. Chief of the Structural Biology Section at the NIAID Vaccine Research Center Peter D. Kwong, Ph.D and John R. Mascola, M.D., center director, spearheaded...
