Anti-HIV drugs work to extend lives and slow the spread of the AIDS virus, but fewer than half of infected gay and bisexual men in the United States took those medications in recent years, a new report says.
Treatment was especially scant among young men and black men, says the report from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, published Thursday in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
The report is the latest evidence that “one of the most powerful tools for protecting people’s health and preventing new HIV infections is reaching only a fraction of the gay men who need it,” says David Purcell, deputy director for behavioral and social science in the CDC’s HIV prevention division.