Tumbling oil prices have been a gift to some but they’ve blown a huge hole in Nigeria’s balance sheet which some fear may set the once promising African economy into a tail spin. What could be worse than finding you have a trillion dollar budget gap and an insurgent group that threatens to hit whatever oil wells remain?
Sunday, February 7, 2016 is National HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. The theme of thisYear’s campaign is ‘I am My Brother’s and Sister’s Keeper: Fight HIV/AIDS’. The emphasis of the 2016 campaign is on the role that everyone can play in HIV prevention and television personality and Co-Founder of 6in10.org, Karamo Brown wants that message heard loud and clear! Brown co-founded 6in10.org with Donta Morrison to eradicate the HIV statistic that says that 6 in 10 African American gay or bi-sexual men will contract HIV by the time they are 40 according to the Centers for Disease Control. Among African Americans,
I remember back in 2012 when many in the HIV world were celebrating this new wonder drug called Truvada (PrEP). This new drug was going to be a major tool (their words not mine) in our tool box to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS. This magic pill was going to help those at highest risk for contracting HIV/AIDS.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one of the reasons why African Americans are at a higher risk of contracting HIV is because we tend to have sex with partners of the same race/ethnicity. Simply put, we tend to have sex with each other, thereby increasing the spread of HIV/AIDS in our community.
It’s been 35 years since the reporting of the first case of HIV in America and it saddens me to say it, but this nation was late at best, in answering the call to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic. What is even more egregious is the deafening silence when it came to supporting HIV education, prevention and care in all communities but even more so in the Black community.
Empire star Jussie Smollett was recently honored by the Black AIDS Institute during their annual “Heroes In The Struggle”(H.I.T.S) gala and awards presentation. H.I.T.S is a photographic tribute to Black Americans and their Allies who have made heroic contributions to the fight against HIV/AIDS.