Black AIDS Institute Joins Push To End HIV By 2030
The Black AIDS Institute (BAI) has launched a national plan to end HIV that will coincide with President Donald Trumps’s push to end HIV in the U.S in 10 years.
The organization made the announcement at the Alabama Legislature Wednesday morning. It’ll focus on tackling the HIV epidemic in the black community.
In his State of the Union Address in February, Trump announced a plan to reduce new HIV infections in the U.S. by 75% in five years,
and by 90% by 2030.
Trump’s proposed plan is called Ending the HIV Epidemic: A Plan for America. So far, his initiative has committed over $250 million, to seven states across the country.
Blacks/African-Americans account for a much higher proportion of new HIV diagnoses and people living with HIV, than any other race/ethnicity.  CDC estimates that 1.1 million people are living with HIV in the United States. Among those, more than 470,000 are African Americans.
The BAI is drafting it’s own 10-year-plan that not only focuses on the HIV epidemic in the black community but also rural areas where resources aren’t as easily accessible. Here’s how president and CEO Raniya Copeland says they’ll come up with that plan:
“Over the next three months, we are going to be going to states and jurisdictions within Trump’s plan to hold town halls to really engage black communities in these efforts to end HIV”.
The BAI is hosting a town hall in Montgomery:
- Thursday, August 29th
- @ Rosa Parks Museum-Troy University
- Address: 252 Montgomery St, Montgomery, AL 36104
- From 6pm-9pm.
“We’ll be engaging them to hear what are the concerns and challenges in their local communities what are the solutions to respond to the HIV epidemic” Copeland explained.
In Alabama, Montgomery, Mobile and Jefferson counties lead the state in number of diagnosed HIV/AIDS patients.
