30th Commemoration of HIV/AIDS

National HIV Testing Day (NHTD): June 27

 

Thirty years ago this June, an article reporting the first known cases of what we now call AIDS was published in CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). Since then, extraordinary progress has been made in treating and preventing HIV, and annual new infections have fallen by more than two-thirds since the height of the epidemic.

Despite this progress, HIV remains a crisis in our country. Over the last three decades, prevention efforts have helped reduce new infections and treatment advances have allowed people with HIV to live longer, healthier lives. But as these improvements have taken place, our nation's collective sense of crisis has waned. Far too many Americans underestimate their risk of infection or believe HIV is no longer a serious health threat, but they must understand that HIV remains an incurable infection. Today, the most infections are among people under 30—a new generation that has never known a time without effective HIV treatments and who may not fully understand the significant health threat HIV poses. The reality remains that about 50,000 new infections occur each year in the U.S. and, today, more than one million people are living with HIV in our nation. Reducing HIV rates in the U.S. is not only possible – it’s imperative – and new advances in HIV prevention hold promise in changing the course of this epidemic.

How can I find out more about HIV and AIDS?

You can call CDC-INFO at 1-800-CDC-INFO (232-4636); TTY access 1-888-232-6348. CDC-INFO is staffed with people trained to answer your questions about HIV and AIDS in a prompt and confidential manner in English or Spanish, 24 hours per day. Staff at CDC-INFO can offer you a wide variety of written materials and put you in touch with organizations in your area that deal with HIV and AIDS.

On the Internet, you can get information on HIV and AIDS from www.AIDS.gov or www.cdc.gov/hiv

Find a testing site near you

------------
Sources:
http://www.cdc.gov
http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/brochures/at-risk.htm
http://www.actagainstaids.org