If you're a black homosexual man living in the United States, you better begin reconsidering your lifestyle and sexual behavior.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) projects that half of all black gay men residing in the U.S. at present will contract the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
In a first-of-its-kind study released in February, the CDC made a comprehensive national estimate of the lifetime risk of an HIV diagnosis for several key populations at risk in every American state.
The centre concluded in its study uploaded on its website that gay and bisexual men "continue to be most affected by HIV in the U.S."
The CDC further stated that at current rates, one in every six men having sex with men in the U.S. will be diagnosed with HIV in their lifetimes. Sexual contact remains to be way riskier in terms of transmitting the virus compared to injecting drugs.
Homosexual men are also 79 more times more likely to be diagnosed with HIV in their lifetimes compared to their heterosexual counterparts, according to the CDC.
Further refining their study based on race and ethnicity, the centre said black gay men in the U.S. has a one-in-every-two chance of contracting HIV. One in every four Hispanic men having sex with fellow males will also be infected with the virus, based on the CDC study.
The CDC also stated that while black homosexual males do not engage in riskier behaviours compared to white gay men, they are almost seven times more prone to being infected with HIV.
Furthermore, the study revealed that Americans living in southern states are more likely to be diagnosed with HIV in their lifetimes compared to those living in other parts of the U.S. People residing in the District of Columbia were found to be most prone to the virus.
In a statement, Jonathan Mermin, M.D., director of CDC's National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and Tuberculosis Prevention, said these findings should not be a cause of alarm, emphasising that they are not concrete predictions but only projections.
"As alarming as these lifetime risk estimates are, they are not a foregone conclusion. They are a call to action," Mermin said, as quoted by LifeSite News.
He added that there are sufficient ways at present to be protected from the deadly virus.
"The prevention and care strategies we have at our disposal today provide a promising outlook for future reductions of HIV infections and disparities in the U.S., but hundreds of thousands of people will be diagnosed in their lifetime if we don't scale up efforts now," the CDC official said.
On the flip side, the CDC said white heterosexual females are the least prone to HIV. In fact, only 1 in every 880 white women are projected by the centre to contract the virus.
