CDC: Half of Black Gay Men Will Be Infected By HIV In Their Lifetime

A new report from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) contains a staggering new statistical finding: roughly half of the gay black men in the country will be infected with HIV in their lifetime. As if the high rate of incarceration and poverty found in the black communities is not enough, this epidemic appears to be racing through the ranks of gay black men. The CDC also found that a quarter of gay Latino men in the United States will be infected with HIV in their lifetime.

The findings were the first of their kind as projections for lifetime infection rates in the United States and were disclosed at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston.

The good news is that there is an improvement in the overall risk rates which currently stand at 1 in 99. That is much improved from 1 in 78 ten years ago.

There remains a huge racial disparity. overall african-Americans have a lifetime HIV risk of 1 in 20 for men and 1 in 48 for women. For whites, that rate is 1 in 132 for men and 1 in 880 for women.

Source: CBS