Tuesday, May 23, 2023

Not everyone has benefitted from the advances in HIV treatment and prevention

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There's still a long way to go in preventing and treating HIV in the U.S.
By Alice Park
Senior Correspondent

While the world’s attention was focused on COVID-19 over the past few years, there have been encouraging changes in the U.S. when it it comes to the impact of another infectious disease: HIV.

In its latest report on HIV cases, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that new infections of the virus dropped by 12% from 2017 to 2021. But while encouraging, the decline wasn’t evenly distributed among different racial and ethnic groups. “While we are on the right track, progress is not happening quickly enough or equitably among all people or in all areas of the country,” said Dr. Jonathan Mermin, director of CDC’s National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD [sexually transmitted diseases] and TB [tuberculosis] Prevention, during a briefing.

Here are some of the latest numbers showing the uneven distribution of progress on HIV in the U.S.:

  • From 2017 to 2021, new infections dropped by 45% among white gay and bisexual men under age 24—but only by 36% and 27% among their among their Hispanic and Latino and Black counterparts, respectively
  • In 2021, 78% of whites who were at high risk of getting HIV were taking the preventive medication PrEP to protect themselves from infection, compared to just 21% of Hispanics and Latinos and 11% of Blacks at similar risk
  • As of that same year, 72% of white Americans diagnosed with HIV were on antiviral treatments, compared to 64% of Hispanics and Latinos and 62% of Blacks

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Today's newsletter was written by  Alice Park and Angela Haupt, and edited by Elijah Wolfson.

 
 
 
 
 
 

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