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February 28, 2008
Awareness of HIV Status Helps Reduce New Infections
A new study published in the March 1 issue of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes (jaids.com) has found that increasing the number of HIV-positive people who are aware of their status can help prevent new infections, as those who know they are HIV positive are likely to take steps to avoid giving HIV to others.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has indicated that the number of HIV-positive people who were aware of their status increased between 2001 and 2004. Researchers at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore created a model to calculate the number of new infections that would have occurred between 2002 and 2004 had the proportion of people aware of their status not increased from its 2001 level. They discovered that the increase in awareness helped to prevent about 6,000 new infections over the three-year period studied.
According to researchers, the study highlights the importance of increasing the proportion of HIV-positive people who are aware of their status.
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