World AIDS Day 2023: A Celebration of Life

In an ongoing effort to eradicate the HIV/AIDS epidemic in 2025, officials from the New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH) are urging people throughout the Garden State to be tested and counseled about the virus – which first emerged in the U.S. more than 40 years – as a way of commemorating World AIDS Day on Friday, December 1.

The international theme for World AIDS Day 2023 is “Let Communities Lead” with the prevailing notion that the world can end AIDS with diverse communities leading the way.

Founded in 1988 as the premier global health day, World AIDS Day is recognized and commemorated on December 1 each year. In the U.S., more than 1.2 million people are living with the HIV/AIDS virus – about 13% of those people don’t know they are positive and require additional testing and treatment.

The history of HIV/AIDS in the U.S.
Though HIV arrived in the United States around 1970, it didn’t come to the public’s attention until the early 1980s. In 1981, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a report about five previously healthy homosexual men becoming infected with Pneumocystis pneumonia – a type of pneumonia, the CDC noted, that almost never affects people with uncompromised immune systems.

The following year, The New York Times published an alarming article about the new immune system disorder, which, by that time, had affected 335 people, killing 136 of them. Because the disease appeared to affect mostly homosexual men, officials initially called it gay-related immune deficiency, or GRID.

In September of 1982, the CDC used the term AIDS to describe the disease for the first time. By the end of the year, AIDS cases were also reported in a number of European countries. Though the CDC discovered all major routes of the disease’s transmission — as well as that female partners of AIDS-positive men could be infected — in 1983, the public considered AIDS a gay disease. It was even called the “gay plague” for many years after.

At the end of 2019, some 38 million people were living with HIV/AIDS worldwide, and 940,000 people died from AIDS-related illnesses that year, according to WHO. Sub-Saharan Africa remains the most severely affected region, accounting for nearly two-thirds of the world’s current HIV cases.

Four years later, in July 2023, the WHO reported that HIV remains a major global public health issue, having claimed 40.4 million lives so far with ongoing transmission in all countries globally, with some countries reporting increasing trends in new infections when previously on the decline.

New Jersey’s plan to end HIV
In 2021, Judith Persichilli, commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Health for the state of New Jersey, and several other state and local officials, under the direction of Gov. Phil Murphy, launched an initiative to eradicate HIV/AIDS in New Jersey. “We continue to make progress in reducing HIV infection and continue to work toward New Jersey’s strategic plan,” Persichilli said. “HIV is critical in protecting your health.” (End the HIV Epidemic in New Jersey.)

Recent statistics about HIV/AIDS globally, the U.S., including New Jersey from WHO and the CDC reveal sobering troubling trends about the disease that include the following:
Nearly 80% of persons living with HIV/AIDS are 40 years of age or older.
People of color account for between 77 to 80% of persons living with HIV/AIDS.
About 30 of those living with HIV/AIDS are women and about one-third of women living with HIV/AIDS are between 20 – 49 years old.

Additionally, the disproportionate burden of HIV in the Northeast and the South is among African American and Latinx gay and bisexual men and transgender women. New Jersey has the seventh highest number of people living with HIV/AIDS with 467.8 people per 100,000. The cities of Newark, Camden, Paterson and Trenton show increasing rates of infection despite efforts from some community groups across the state to raise awareness and encourage frequent HIV/AIDS testing. (HIV/AIDS: Alarming numbers for New Jersey and Essex County.)

The District of Columbia and New York are the states with the highest HIV/AIDS rates. The states of Wyoming, Montana, Iowa, Utah and New Hampshire are among the states with the lowest rates of HIV/AIDS.

Many in the medical field as well as gay community activists contend stigma, homophobia, transphobia, racism and the lack of access to sufficient healthcare services continue to be barriers to effective HIV prevention and care.

“To end the HIV/AIDS epidemic, we must continue to examine new ways to reach and actively engage communities that continue to be disproportionately impacted by HIV,” said Shanell McCoy, senior director of Corporate Social Responsibility at Gilead Sciences in Atlanta. Gilead remains at the forefront of global research and information about HIV/AIDS. McCoy added that Gilead supports innovative programs to raise greater awareness and change the statistics about HIV/AIDS in at-risk and disadvantaged communities.

In New Jersey, the Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice in Princeton provides a safe space for the LGBTQ community throughout the state, not only on World AIDS Day but every day. The Center is named in honor of the late civil rights and gay activist Bayard Rustin. A film honoring Rustin was recently released on Netflix and stars award-winning actor Colman Domingo. Robt Martin Seda-Schreiber, an activist and the director of the Center, said events like World AIDS Day and Pride celebrations have a tremendous impact on all aspects of society. “We want to continue to build and grow our national platform and be a safe space for people.”

Events being held in Central and North Jersey to celebrate World AIDS Day 2023 include: RWJBarnabas Health, East Orange City Hall, Friday, Dec. 1, 11 a.m. – 3 p.m.
https://www.rwjbh.org/events/event/?event=37952 and Garden State Equality/Asbury Park NJ, World Aids Day With Garden State Equality at Hyatt Regency in New Brunswick, Sunday, Dec. 3, 12:00 p.m. – 4 p.m.