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US Aids statistics grim, body says
2005-06-25 07:51:15
By Bilal Abdul-Aziz, Washington, DC
Almost half of the about 1 million people living with HIV/Aids in the United States are African-Americans.
Executive Director of the National Association of People with Aids (Napwa) Terje Anderson made the disclosure when briefing African journalists currently on a tour of District of Columbia.
'The estimates especially highlight the dramatic rates of infection among African-Americans, who constitute nearly half of those living with HIV/Aids in the US,' he said.
He added that Napwa believed that the number of people living with HIV/Aids in the US should be enough to stir policy makers into responding more effectively and aggressively.
'The fact that well over one million Americans are currently living with HIV/Aids tells us this epidemic is bigger and more serious than our national policy makers have been treating it,' Anderson said.
Latest figures on HIV/Aids in the US were yet another wake-up call in a long string of alarming statistics, he said and added:'HIV in the African-American community is one of the greatest civil rights challenges of our times.'
The number of people living with HIV/Aids in the US had increased by more than a quarter over the last few years and this showed that a lot still had to be done to put the scourge under control in the world’s richest country, according to Anderson.
'Those of us living with HIV/Aids aren’t dying at the high rates we were in earlier years, but the fact remains that we continue to see unacceptably high rates of new infections each year,' Anderson said.
He said Napwa was founded in 1983 and was the oldest national Aids organisation in the US and the oldest national network of people living with HIV/Aids in the world.
The association’s primary mission is to advocate on behalf of people living with the disease and people of colour.
'Napwa operates a connected series of trainings and leadership opportunities that will allow individuals to participate in multiple activities and become part of a powerful national network of skilled and mobilised positive leaders,' Anderson noted.
He further noted that programmes organised by the association responded to the changing needs of the epidemic by developing positive leadership, providing essential health information, advocating for the needs of infected and risked people and responding to the growing global pandemic.
Napwa has links with many other networks of people with Aids around the world, according to the association’s Director of International Programs Stephanie Stines.
'We are working very closely with networks of people with Aids in Tanzania, including Tanopha and Shdepha, particularly in the area of training,'Stines told The Guardian moments after Anderson’s briefing.
The journalists later met Jesse Milan who has been living with HIV for the last 24 years.
Six journalists from Malawi, South Africa, Namibia, Nigeria, Ghana and Tanzania are visiting the US to learn about the country’s contribution in the fight against HIV/Aids.
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