New York, September 22, 2017— On October 15 the U.S. commemorates National Latinx AIDS Awareness (NLAAD), an opportunity to bring together Latino communities, Latino service providers and organizations providing services to Latinos throughout the U.S. under one theme: “Be a Superhero. Defeat HIV.”
This year’s theme is around superheroes. Why? To give a message that each and every one of us has a role to play in defeating HIV, but more importantly it’s going to take a team of community members—a team of superheroes— to defeat HIV. Each one of us has a “superpower” such as: taking an HIV test, practicing safer sex, using PrEP, receiving treatment, and becoming undetectable.
In 2015, there were 40,040 cases of new HIV diagnoses in the United States. Hispanics/Latinos account for almost 1 in 4 (24%) of these new diagnoses (9,798), despite representing only 18 percent of the national population. New HIV diagnoses among Hispanics/Latinos have remained constant during the past 5 years while the incidence of new diagnoses have decreased in the other ethnic groups, as we see the impact of stigma, homophobia, transphobia on creating major barriers in accessing HIV Testing, prevention, treatment and care in our community. Given that Hispanics/Latinos are the largest and fastest growing minority group in the U.S., addressing HIV/AIDS in this community is essential to our nation’s health.
We invite you to get involved in this year’s campaign by:
- Learning about the HIV test, condom use, PrEP and HIV treatment; and then sharing the information with others.
- Registering your events and sharing information about your events in each of your communities so that many others may attend.
- Using and sharing some of the infographics, fact sheets, posters, web banners, social media resources developed to raise awareness about the impact of HIV in Hispanic/Latino communities.
- Visiting www.nlaad.org and using the hashtag #NLAAD
- Making this campaign yours by using the fillable poster.