NIH Statement on National Latino AIDS Awareness Day, October 15, 2010
from Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., NIAID Director
On the eighth annual National Latino AIDS Awareness Day, we extend our compassion to the members of this community who are living with HIV/AIDS, and we redouble our commitment to fight the epidemic in this population, which carries a disproportionate burden of HIV/AIDS.
Reducing the number of HIV-related deaths among Latinos and other communities at high risk for HIV infection is a national imperative. Since AIDS was first recognized, an estimated 106,000 Latinos with the disease in the United States, Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories have died through the end of 2007. Moreover, among individuals with diagnosed HIV infection, Latinos have the second highest death rate of all racial and ethnic groups. The National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies are confronting this tragedy in many ways, including through the National HIV/AIDS Strategy . Part of the plan for implementing this strategy calls for developing approaches to better monitor key measures of health that must be improved in Latinos and others with HIV infection so they can live long, vibrant lives.
To read the complete statement, go to http://www.niaid.nih.gov/news/newsreleases/2010/Pages/latino10.aspx .