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Topic Links |
CDC
Advancing HIV Prevention Initiative
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CDC Role in
the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief
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Comprehensive HIV Prevention
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Correctional Health
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Eliminating
Perinatal HIV Transmission
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HIV/AIDS
Surveillance
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HIV and STD
Prevention for Men Who Have Sex with Men
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HIV
Prevention Faith Initiative
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Minority
AIDS Initiative
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National
HIV Behavioral Surveillance
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New
Biomedical HIV Interventions
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CDC has been involved in the fight against HIV and AIDS from the
epidemic's earliest days. Initially, CDC's contribution was the detective
work that characterizes epidemiology and surveillance, as CDC scientists
observed a link among a cluster of rare cancers that heralded the ominous
presence of the virus in the United States and around the world. Today,
those surveillance efforts continue to document the epidemic's path by
monitoring not only AIDS case rates but also, wherever possible, the extent
of HIV infection and its impact on specific populations at heightened risk,
such as inmates in correctional facilities.
CDC has also emphasized two other features of public health that are
critical to controlling the epidemic: prevention and community involvement.
HIV prevention has helped slow the rate of new HIV infections in the United
States from over 150,000 per year in the mid-1980s to 40,000 today.
Perinatal transmission from HIV-infected women to their children has been
reduced from 1,000 to 2,000 infants in the early 1990s to several hundred
today. CDC's 5-year strategic plan to guide HIV prevention builds on these
types of successes, but recognizes that profound challenges remain, both
here and abroad. For example, since up to a third of the estimated 850,000
to 950,000 people in the United States who are infected with HIV are unaware
of their condition, an important goal is to increase the number of people
who are aware of their serostatus so that they can receive early and
effective treatment and prevent inadvertent transmission to their partners.
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