On the HIV.gov page is What Is Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S.? (EHE) “The initiative aims to substantially reduce HIV infections in the U.S. by focusing resources in the 57 jurisdictions where they’re needed most. It does that by scaling up four science-based strategies: diagnose, treat, prevent, and respond…. The bold plan… aims to end the HIV epidemic in the United States by 2030.”
Here are some statistics. “Approximately 1.2 million people in the U.S. have HIV. About 13 percent of them don’t know it and need testing…
“According to the latest estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 31,800 people acquired HIV in the United States in 2022. Annual infections in the U.S. have been reduced by more than two-thirds since the height of the epidemic in the mid-1980s. Further, CDC estimates of annual HIV infections in the United States show hopeful signs of progress in recent years.
“The decline [in new infections] was driven by a 30% decrease among young people aged 13-24 years. Increases in pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) prescriptions, viral suppression, and HIV testing likely contributed to the decline.”
Worldwide
In 2024, a “report from UNAIDS showed that the world is at a critical moment that will determine whether world leaders meet their commitment to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030. The report, The Urgency of Now: AIDS at a Crossroads, brings together new data and case studies which demonstrate that the decisions and policy choices taken by world leaders this year will decide the fate of millions of lives and whether the world’s deadliest pandemic is overcome.”
Worldwide, approximately 40 million people were living with HIV in 2024. Over a million people became newly infected with HIV that year, and over half a million people died from AIDS-related illnesses.
Since the start of the epidemic, more than 75 million people have become infected with HIV, and more than 40 million people have died from AIDS-related illnesses, including my high school friend Vito.
Not “over”
I point this out periodically because occasionally, I run into comments suggesting that HIV/AIDS is “over.” It certainly isn’t the death sentence that it was when first defined in the 1980s. New HIV infections have been reduced by 61% since the peak in 1996, while AIDS-related deaths have decreased by 70% since the peak in 2004.
In July, my old buddy Amy Barlow Liberatore, a/k/a Sharp Little Pencil, posted a song she wrote years ago for World AIDS Day, in memory of her dear friend Jeff French. It’s called “The Day I Saw an Angel Fly.”
I’m reminded that this is the 35th anniversary of the album Red Hot + Blue: A Tribute To Cole Porter, which “raised nearly $1m for the activist group ACT UP. It was the first of a series of compilations designed to fight the scourge of HIV/AIDS. You can hear the album here; I was and am very fond of it.
From the