🌍❤️ Today, on World AIDS Day, we honor those we lost during the AIDS epidemic and reaffirm our commitment to ending the ongoing crisis. Silence is not an option—awareness, compassion, and action save lives. 🕊️✨
To commemorate 40 years since the publication of the June 1981 MMWR article on the strange disease that we now know as #AIDS, here is a #1988 #AmFAR and #AdCouncil AIDS Awareness poster
This week's #BlackHistoryMonth queer pioneer is Phill Wilson, founder of the Black AIDS Institute!
In the early 1980s Wilson and his partner were diagnosed with AIDS, an epidemic that was just starting to emerge in the U.S. While any outreach from the government was primarily focused on white, gay communities, Wilson felt like not enough was being done to bring Black communities together to fight the crisis. After his partner's passing, he channeled his grief into activism. . Wilson first served as Director of Policy and Planning for the AIDS Project in Los Angeles, and founded the Black AIDS Institute in 1999.
In 2010, he was appointed to President Obama's Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS as co-chair of the disparities subcommittee. Today, he continues the fight for and educate various communities around the world.
HIV is a chronic condition, HIV stands for human immunodeficiency virus. It is the virus that can lead to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome or AIDS if not treated. Unlike some other viruses, the human body can’t get rid of HIV completely, even with treatment. So once you get HIV, you have it for life. Since the beginning of the HIV epidemic in 1982, the majority (83%) of HIV cases diagnosed among Kentuckians have been reported among males (8,739 cases). In terms of age at time of diagnosis, more male HIV cases were diagnosed at ages 30-39 (2,940 or 34%) than any other age grouping. Among white males, the highest percentage of cumulative cases was aged 30-39 years at the time of diagnosis (36%). Among black males, 35% of cases were aged 20-29 years and 29% were aged 30-39 years at time of diagnosis. The percentage of Hispanic males aged 20-29 at time of diagnosis (40%) was higher when compared to blacks (35%) and whites (28%). Conversely, Hispanic males had the lowest percentage of cases diagnosed at ages 40-49 years (14%) as compared to black males and white males (20% and 23% respectively). Six percent of black males were teenagers at time of diagnosis compared to 2% of white males and 2% of Hispanic males.
Chuffed to be a part of @nohoodinoyoni a positive moment for change! #LoveForAll #ahoodforgood #hivprevention #gender-equality #agentsofchange #empowerment #grassrootsoccer
IntraHealth International’s team in Tanzania recently started mapping data for expanding voluntary medical male circumcision services (VMMC).
Through our CDC, PEPFAR-funded Tohara Plus, project, we’re strengthening and scaling up high-quality VMMC services among adolescents and adult men in the country, and reducing their risk of contracting HIV through heterosexual intercourse by at least 60%.
Partnering with the government of Tanzania, we’re working to reach 80% male circumcision in 28 target districts (subnational units) by 2020.
Here IntraHealth staff members participate in training last month on ArcGISPro, an application for creating, visualizing and analyzing spatial data. The team has already started using what they learned for rapid data visualization for planning and monitoring purposes, including to map and show which areas still have a large proportion of uncircumcised men. Project staff will use this information to make decisions about demand creation approaches and locations for VMMC outreach sites.
From left to right: Renatus Kidugo, digital health officer in Tanzania; Kija Nyalali, ToharaPlus director of monitoring and evaluation; Damian Laki, ToharaPlus monitoring and evaluation manager; Silvana Chimombo, ToharaPlus monitoring and evaluation officer; Ismail Wadembere, HRIS manager in Uganda and ArcGIS Pro trainer; and Shangwe Kimathi, ToharaPlus monitoring and evaluation officer.
Photo by Auson Kisanga for IntraHealth International
