• AIDS is not under control. In fact, it is spreading more quickly than health experts imagined. In August, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a report estimating 56,300 new HIV infections in the U.S. in 2006 – much higher than the previous annual estimates of 40,000 new infections.

• Black Americans are seven times more likely than white Americans to become newly infected with HIV, according to the August CDC report. The report concluded “blacks are more heavily and disproportionately affected by HIV than any other racial/ethnic group in the U.S.”

• Blacks are one in eight Americans, but half the people living with HIV in the U.S., according to the CDC.

• Disparities exist all over the country. A report released in August by New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene found that almost half of new AIDS victims in New York during the period studied were black. The District of Columbia has the highest rate of AIDS among African Americans in the country –  277.5 for every 100,000 people – the Washington Post reported Sept. 24.

• AIDS remains the leading cause of death among black women between 25-34 years and the second leading cause of death in black men between 35-44 years.

• Sixty-five percent of HIV-infected newborns are black, the CDC reports.

• Black women in the U.S. were 23 times more likely than white women to be diagnosed with AIDS in 2005, according to the CDC.

• Blacks make up 70% of new HIV diagnoses among teenagers.

• Between 2001 and 2006, the number of HIV/AIDS diagnoses among young black men who have sex with men (ages 13-24) nearly doubled.

• In New York State prisons, blacks are six times as likely to have HIV as whites.

• If Black America were a separate country, it would be the world’s 35th most populous country, but would rank 16^th in the people living with HIV, 88^th in infant mortality, and 105th in life expectancy, according to a study released in August by the Black Aids Institute.

• More people are living with HIV in black America than seven of 15 countries targeted for assistance under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), including Botswana, Côte d’Ivoire, Lesotho, Swaziland and Ukraine.

• In areas such as Detroit, Newark, New York, Washington D.C. and the Deep South, HIV infection rates among blacks approach those of sub-Saharan Africa.  For example, HIV prevalence among middle-aged Black men in Manhattan is almost as high as prevalence in South Africa, home to the world’s largest population of people living with HIV.

• Outside of sub-Saharan Africa, only four countries – and only two in the Western Hemisphere – have adult HIV prevalence as high as the conservative estimate (2% among adults) for Black America.