African-Americans fall well below a number of goals set out in 2010 by President Barack Obama's HIV/AIDS Strategy, which looks to lower the annual rate of new infections by 25% and increase the number of newly diagnosed cases linked to medical care from 65% to 85% by 2015. The report shows the challenges that remain toward reaching those goals, with 75% of African-Americans diagnosed with HIV in 2010 getting linked to clinical care while only 48% were retained in care. Only 46% of blacks were prescribed antiretroviral therapy and only 35% achieved viral suppression, the report found. Reasons for the disparity in care may be related to socioeconomic factors, including a lack of health insurance and poverty, as well as a cultural stigma about the disease, according to the report.
Improving access to care for blacks with HIV/AIDS is a key component of efforts to reduce the prevalence of the disease within that population. Access-to-care improvements would help decrease the spread of the disease overall. While the annual number of newly infected cases of HIV globally has declined in recent years, the rate has remained about 40,000 to 50,000 a year in the U.S. for the past decade. About 2% of the entire U.S. black population tested positive for HIV in 2010, according to the CDC.
While whites accounted for the largest number of newly infected cases in 2010 at 11,200, blacks made up nearly half, 48%, of all deaths from HIV in 2010.
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