HIV and Aging Awareness Raffle

Tickets will be on sale from September 13th through September 23rd the drawing will happen on Friday September 24th winners will recieve a call following the drawing.

September 18 is National HIV/AIDS and Aging Awareness Day—a day to call attention to the growing number of people living long and full lives with HIV and to aging-related challenges of HIV prevention, testing, treatment, and care.

People with HIV are living longer thanks to treatment with HIV medicines. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2016, nearly half the people in the United States who were living with diagnosed HIV were aged 50 or older. In 2017, approximately one in six new diagnoses of HIV occurred in this age group. People aging with HIV can face treatment-related challenges, such as drug interactions between HIV medicines and medicines used for other conditions.

Older adults also face HIV prevention and testing challenges. CDC reports that among the adults aged 55 or older who received an HIV diagnosis in 2015, 50% had been living with HIV for 4.5 years before they were diagnosed. A delayed diagnosis means treatment with HIV medicines is also delayed, which gives HIV more time to damage the immune system. Late diagnoses can occur because older adults may not think they are at risk of HIV, and they may mistake HIV symptoms for those of normal aging. Health care providers may not always test older people for HIV infection.