AIDS/HIV - Prevention And Transmission News

While prevention efforts have managed to reduce the number of new HIV infections, each year, an estimated 56,300 Americans are newly infected with HIV. Efforts are underway by many agencies, primarily the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to fund prevention programs to educate people at highest risk, as well as the general public, about HIV/AIDS and preventing or reducing their risk. HIV is spread by sexual contact with an infected person, by sharing needles and/or syringes (primarily for drug injection) with someone who is infected, or, less commonly (and now very rarely in countries where blood is screened for HIV antibodies), through transfusions of infected blood or blood clotting factors. Babies born to HIV-infected women may become infected before or during birth or through breast-feeding after birth.