HIV/AIDS has been a global epidemic for more than 30 years. Most of today's youth have never known a world without it.

In 2010, an estimated 47,000 people were diagnosed with HIV and approximately 20 percent of them were aged 13-24, with the highest rate of new infections occurring among those aged 20-24.[*]

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that about 1 in 5 people in the United States who are infected with HIV do not know they are infected.[**]

Although blacks, or African Americans, made up only 12 percent of the population in the 46 states, they accounted for 46 percent of the new HIV diagnoses during 2010.

^* Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Divisions of HIV/AIDS Prevention, National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention, Diagnoses of HIV Infection and AIDS in the United States and Dependent Areas, 2010, HIV Surveillance Report, Volume 22 (http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/surveillance/resources/reports/2010report/index.htm).Retrieved June 2012.

^** Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Divisions of HIV/AIDS Prevention, National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention, HIV in the United States: Ata A Glance, March 2012. (http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/factsheets/us.htm). Retrieved June 2012.

^*** Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention. HIV Surveillance by Race/Ethnicity (through 2010) (http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/resources/slides/race-ethnicity/index.htm). Retrieved June 2012.