Equal Access to HIV Treatment Could Finally Slow the Black Epidemic – COLORLINES

A sad fact too few realize is we have the tools to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic, but not the political will. This month, results from a clinical trial known as "HPTN 052" were released and "confirmed what many public health experts have long believed: early HIV treatment not only benefits the person infected, but also reduces the likelihood that he or she will transmit the virus to sexual partners," Rod McCullom reports.

The reduction in transmission rates is an astonishing 96%, lighting a fire under health officials to fundamentally reevaluate approaches to treating the disease. Termed "treatment as prevention," the more aggressive stance on treatment and early testing "could help finally break the back of the worldwide HIV/AIDS epidemic," particularly among hard hit groups, such as the Black community, who "represent only 13 percent of the U.S. population but account for 45 percent of new HIV infections."

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