African Americans – Half Of All US AIDS Cases

In 2007, the people suffering from AIDS in Buncombe County USA,  doubled in comparison to five years ago and is affecting mainly African-Americans.

In this area African-Americans are 20 times more likely to die from AIDS than others, although they represent a minority of the population.

It has in fact been proved that, nationally these statistics are even more accentuated, for half of the American population with AIDS is African-American, thus becoming the main cause of death amongst this ethnic minority.

Public officials and health establishments are trying to counsel the population to seek information and be examined regularly in order to detect the disease and treat it.

The major problem lies in the fact that people know nothing about the disease and some do not even know they have developed it.

In order to curb AIDS, this year the SISTA project is reaching out to the population in places like churches and other religious communities in order to inform as many women as possible.

The reason the African-Americans are more likely to be hit by the disease is not due to their race, but rather to their limited education, poverty, and neglected health care as well as the shame in having contracted the disease, which remains concealed, therefore not dealt with.