In This Issue
This week we commemorate the National Week of Prayer for the Healing of AIDS and on Thursday, March 10th, Women and Girls HIV Awareness Day.
The Black church and Black ministers are increasingly involving themselves in fighting HIV/AIDS. Reverend Edwin Saunders of Metropolitan Interdenominational Church in Nashville has been leading the charge since the epidemic's early years. Today Metropolitan even runs it's own HIV clinic. Read how this church supports the community it serves.
Although Black women account for 12 percent of women in the United States, they make up almost 70 percent of women believed to have AIDS. But being diagnosed with HIV/AIDS is no longer a death sentence. Andrea Collier reports that many HIV-positive women are coming together and learning to thrive with peer support.
Do you understand your doctor's orders? Many people don't. Kaiser Family Foundation and Washington Post detail the extensive effort to help patients understand their health providers' instructions--and to help providers communicate in everyday English.
Deepening our understanding of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy, Ronald Valdiserri, M.D., M.P.H, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health, Infectious Diseases, informs us about the government's goal of reducing the community viral load. And last week the 18th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) met in Boston. We offer one link so that you can view the plenary presentation of Dr. Jonathan Mermin, Director of the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention at the CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention, and another to help you watch the conference's Webcast Sessions.
Yours in the struggle,
Phill