The National HIV Awareness Month Star Ribbon, by the design team of Kenneth Cole, amfAR’s Chairman of the BoardJuly 2012 is the first annual National HIV Awareness
Month. Launched by a coalition of
national AIDS organizations, the initiative aims to reenergize the fight
against HIV/AIDS in the United States. It
hopes to build public awareness, end stigma and discrimination, and involve
more people and groups in a broad-based effort to end the epidemic.
Many Americans believe that AIDS is all but over in
the U.S. Yet more than a million
Americans are living with HIV and 50,000 new infections occur each year, a rate
that has remained relatively unchanged for more than a decade despite education
and prevention efforts. Minority groups
including men who have sex with men, African Americans, and Latinos are
disproportionately affected by the epidemic and have the highest rates of
infection.
“HIV continues to persist in all
corners of the United States, yet most citizens are completely unaware of the
impact of HIV here at home,” said Dawn Averitt Bridge, founder of the Coalition
for National HIV Awareness Month and founder and chair of the board of The Well
Project. “We are fighting an almost entirely preventable disease that
needlessly devastates families and communities because so many Americans are simply
unaware of their HIV status, or are unable to access appropriate treatment and
care due to a wide range of societal and structural barriers, including poverty
and stigma. We have a responsibility to engage the American public in this
fight and turn the tide of the domestic epidemic.”
July 2012 offers the perfect
opportunity for galvanizing renewed action on AIDS. In July the International AIDS Conference
will take place in the United States for the first time in more than 20
years. July also marks the second
anniversary of the release of the United States’ first-ever National HIV/AIDS
Strategy by President Obama.
There are many ways for individuals to get involved
and help bring HIV/AIDS back into the public consciousness. Tweet, blog or write a Facebook post about
National HIV Awareness Month. Talk to
your friends and family about HIV/AIDS, and remind them why it is still an
important issue. Organize an event to
raise awareness, or donate to amfAR to support the innovative AIDS research that
offers the best hope of bringing an end to the epidemic.
For more information, visit www.nationalhivawarenessmonth.org.