Don’t Turn Your Back on the Fact

Treatment as Prevention (TasP) is a new strategy to end the epidemic and could successfully stop HIV in its tracks.  Nearly 28% of transgender women test positive for HIV.  18% of the HIV+ population in America is unaware of their status.   Getting tested and knowing your status is the first step toward ending the epidemic.  Approximately 73% of HIV+ transgender women do not know their status.  Treatment as Prevention (TasP) has significantly improved life expectancy in HIV+ individuals from months to decades.  Treatment as Prevention (TasP) can reduce the risk of transmitting HIV by 96%.  More than 1.1 million people in the United States are living with HIV.  Only 50% of HIV+ individuals in the United States remain in care.  The Obama administration has helped create our nation's first-ever HIV/AIDS strategy.  HIV/AIDS issues are bottom-of-the-list priorities for many LGBTQ organizations in the United States.  If every HIV+ person in the world adhered to TasP, the HIV epidemic would end within 50 years.  From 2008 to 2010, new HIV infections remained steady in the general public but rose 22% in young gay men.  Gay men represent two-thirds of new HIV infections in America.  6,000 gay men die of AIDS every year.  If HIV continues to spread at its current rates, more than half of college-aged gay men will have HIV by the age of 50.  An astounding 44% of infected gay men do not know they have contracted HIV.