In This Issue

This week we commemorate the National Week of Prayer for the Healing of AIDS and on Thursday, March 10^th, 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.

Community Viral Load: A New Way to Measure our Progress

We know that when persons are infected with HIV and have not been diagnosed, the virus replicates silently in their bodies for several years. During this time, their immune systems are being damaged and they are very likely to spread the virus to others since they are unaware of their infection. That is why the National HIV AIDS Strategy has identified a specific target for increasing the number of persons who have their HIV infection diagnosed in a timely manner: “By 2015, increase from 79% to 90% the percentage of people living with HIV who know their serostatus (from 948,000 to 1,080,000).”

Helping Patients Understand Their Medical Treatment

This story was produced in collaboration with the Washington Post

An elderly woman sent home from the hospital develops a life-threatening infection because she doesn't understand the warning signs listed in the discharge instructions. A man flummoxed by an intake form in a doctor's office reflexively writes "no" to every question because he doesn't understand what is being asked. A young mother pours a drug that is supposed to be taken by mouth into her baby's ear, perforating the eardrum. And a man in his 70s preparing for his first colonoscopy uses a suppository as directed, but without first removing it from the foil packet.

Effective HIV Prevention Programs in the U.S.

On Monday, February 28, Dr. Jonathan Mermin gave a plenary presentation at the 18^th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in Boston. Dr. Mermin is the Director of the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention at the CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention. His talk was titled The Science and Practice of HIV Prevention in the U.S. We encourage you to view and/or listen to his presentation, which includes slides and data.

The Rev. Edwin Sanders: Ministering to 'Whosoever They May Be'

About a mile away from Nashville, Tenn.'s Metropolitan Interdenominational Church (MIC) stands the First Response Center, a primary care clinic that provides HIV/AIDS testing, treatment, prevention services and education. Part of the 350-member church's outreach program, the health center is the brainchild of the Rev. Edwin Sanders and his fellow founding members. Since its inception, it has become a pillar of the predominantly Black community in which it's located, and an essential resource for folks who are not able to obtain such services anywhere else.