National Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day is an annual observance that takes place on April 10 to educate the public about the impact of HIV and AIDS on young people and to highlight the work young people are doing across the country to respond to the epidemic.
HIV/AIDS has always been an epidemic of young people. Despite stepped-up prevention efforts and public-awareness campaigns, however, it continues to infect adolescents and young adults worldwide in alarming numbers. This is the sobering conclusion of the latest HIV/AIDS Policy Fact Sheet (2 pages, PDF) issued by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a national health philanthropy dedicated to providing information and analysis of health issues to policymakers, the media, and the general public. According to the foundation, of the five million people newly infected with HIV/AIDS in 2001, almost 6 in 10 (58%) were under the age of 25, while women comprised an increasing proportion of those infected, rising from 41 percent in 1997 to 47 percent in 2001. The potential demographic consequences of the epidemic are similarly frightening: In countries where 15 percent or more of all adults are infected with HIV — a group that included eight countries in 2000 — it is projected that at least 35 percent of boys aged 15 will die of AIDS. To view the foundation's extensive archive of HIV/AIDS-related publication, visit: http://www.kff.org/sections.cgi?section=hivaids.
