National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day – Make Feb 7th Your Time To Get Tested
National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day – Make Feb 7th Your Time To Get Tested
February 7th falls on a Sunday this year and marks National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. This is a very important day for all Americans regardless of race to keep in mind, as people may not be aware that HIV/AIDS disproportionately strikes African-Americans of all ages in this country.
The statistics are quite staggering. According to the CDC’s National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day page, an estimated 1.1 million people live with HIV infection, and 46% of those are African-American. Yet blacks only represent 12% of the United States population.
The National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day official page offers more sobering facts. For example, “Blacks accounted for 51% of the 42,655 (including children) new HIV/AIDS diagnoses in 34 states with long-term, confidential name-based HIV reporting.” This is definitely not a crisis on the wane, and there is a lot to be done.
Extremely important for all, but especially the black community, is to make sure you are HIV negative by getting tested regularly. This can have a huge impact on the problem. It’s one of the reasons a main strategy employed on this day is a massive HIV testing push. If people can get in the habit of testing themselves annually or bi-annually, some of the stigma of testing will vanish, and healthier communities and individuals will result.
If you are hesitant to go to a community clinic for any reason, you can always get tested by ordering a home HIV test kit online. The test is strictly anonymous and you are only identified by a code that comes with your kit and that you use to receive your results by phone. The kits we sell are FDA Approved blood tests, so there should be no concern over the “does this really work” line of questioning – they are also 99.9% accurate, as reliable as those used by doctors and hospitals.
The home AIDS test allows you to test yourself at any time, in any place. We hope you will make February 7th your day to test in order to raise awareness of one of the most devastating HIV/AIDS crises in the country.
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