Staggering Fact About HIV

I was watching CNN one night about a week ago, and I usually can't take my eyes off the scroll at the bottom of the screen. It always has the most interesting headlines. Then there was a fact that scrolled by that startled me: More than one million Americans are living with HIV and more than 200,000 of those don't know it. Those numbers were based on new results released by the Centers for Disease Control. I don't know what's scarier--the fact that this many people have the fatal sexually transmitted disease or that 20 percent of them are unaware of it.


Today is World AIDS Day. It's not the kind of observance any of us care to have during the holiday season. But the numbers are getting worse. Learn more by visiting the CDC's World AIDS Day page.

Charlotte Bobcats forward Emeka Okafor has been leading the One Million African Lives Initiative (OMALI) for the last couple of years. The goal of the initiative is to save one million lives in Africa by 2011 by working in remote areas, providing blood testing kits and clinical training. In recognition of World AIDS Day, today Okafor launched a mobile texting campaign to raise money for OMALI. If you text the word HIV to 90999, a $5 donation will be made to the initiative (the one-time charge will be posted to your phone bill). Click here to learn more about OMALI.