Obama Launches AIDS Ads
Jacksonville – On Tuesday April 7, the Obama administration launched a $45 million dollar, five year program to bring awareness and to help combat the AIDS epidemic in the United States.
The campaign focuses on the fact that every 9½ minutes, someone in the United States becomes infected with HIV which comes to about 56,300 new cases every year.
Melody Barnes, who is the director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, said the five year program campaign will concentrate on those at the greatest risk of HIV infection who are black men and women and gay and bisexual men.
African Americans are about 12 percent of the population but are infected with almost half of the new HIV cases. According to the CDC, 1 in 16 black men will become infected with HIV and 1 in 30 black women will be infected with HIV in their lifetime.
Another part of the AIDS awareness campaign will focus on Latinos who according to the CDC represent 15 percent of the US population and 17 percent of new AIDS/HIV cases. The rate of new AIDS cases among Latino men is twice that of white men and the rate among Latino women is four times that of white women.
Studies have shown that aids prevention messages are not being well received so over the next five years The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will spend $45 million to get the message out to the public.
The campaign is called the “Act Against AIDS” which will be comprised of radio ads, online banner ads and public service announcements both in English and Spanish. It will also be advertised on buses and trains and in airports and there is also a Web site: http://NineAndaHalfMinutes.org
The AIDS awareness campaign is much needed because in the past year only 14 percent of Americans claim to have seen read or heard much about HIV. The CDC says the AIDS epidemic is much bigger than anyone thought it was and must to be addressed immediately.
Melody Barnes stressed this need in statement “Our goal is to remind Americans that HIV/AIDS continues to pose a serious health threat in the United States and encourage them to get the facts they need to take action for themselves and their communities.”
