Half Of Gay Black Men May Become HIV Infected, CDC Says

New research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warns that an estimated half of bisexual and gay black men in the United States will become infected with HIV: The information is based on a new government analysis.

After examining diagnoses and dath rates from 2009-2013, CDC researchers projected lifetime risk of HIV diagnosis based on ethnicity, state, sex and other factors, according to Health Day.

"As alarming as these lifetime risk estimates are, they are not a foregone conclusion. They are a call to action," said Dr. Jonathan Mermin, director of the CDC's National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and Tuberculosis Prevention. "The prevention and care strategies we have at our disposal today provide a promising outlook for future reductions of HIV infections and disparities in the U.S., but hundreds of thousands of people will be diagnosed in their lifetime if we don't scale up efforts now."

The report shows that black people in the United States will be the most at risk racial group in the country, with up to one in 20 men and one in 48 women facing a diagnosis of HIV in their lifetime, according to USA Today. 

"As alarming as these lifetime risk estimates are, they are not a foregone conclusion. They are a call to action," Jonathan Mermin, director of CDC's National Center for HIV/AIDS, said in a statement--pushing on the need to increase prevention strategies in at-risk groups. 

While the number of new HIV infections have been falling in the United States to about 40,000 annually, according to Fox News, a disproportionate amount of those cases (about 10,000) consist of gay and bisexual black men. Unfortunately, that number has seemed to remain steady while infection rates in other groups have dropped.

According to the CDC, HIV is transmitted from an infected person to another via direct contact of bodily fluids via sexual contact or needle or syringe use.

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