Alarmed by increasing HIV rates among Latinx men who have sex with men and transgender Latina women of all ages, the National Hispanic Medical Association hosted a meeting in Atlanta for community leaders to address the situation. Specifically, they assessed, discussed and identified action steps to be taken to help reverse the trend.
According to a press release from the Latino Commission on AIDS, the meeting enumerated several action steps to address the unique challenges facing the Latinx community. “Participants recognized the devastation of HIV,” the press release states, “the barriers to prevention and care services, the impact of stigma, immigration, culture, race and the social determinants of health that impact Hispanic/Latinx in the United States, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.”
The next steps and goals are currently being drafted, and participants will review them at upcoming meetings before they are publicized.
The meeting was not the first effort of national Latinx groups to address the HIV problem. In March 2018, a group of 147 organizations and 176 individual leaders sent a letter to Eugene McCray, MD, director of the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention.
The letter detailed the crisis in the Latinx community before spelling out a call to action.
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