The federal government recently released a new National HIV/AIDS Strategy, a coordinated plan for how the country will battle a disease that affects over 1 million Americans, including more than 20,000 in Louisiana. The key goals of the strategy are reducing new infections by 25% by 2015, getting treatment for patients within 3 months of diagnosis, and increasing educational outreach efforts. Connecting patients with treatment will help prevent spreading HIV, and to this end, the new strategy calls for increasing the number of providers of clinical care for HIV/AIDS nationally. Click here to read more. Click here for a PDF version of the complete National HIV/AIDS Strategy.

To help fight HIV/AIDS here in Louisiana, go out to diner on July 15th at one of the 60 New Orleans restaurants that will be donating 25% of their profits to the NO/AIDS Task Force, a non-profit that runs an HIV clinic and helps provide home delivered meals, housing, mental health services, and peer support to HIV positive people in the New Orleans and Houma/Thibodaux areas. Click here for a full list of participating restaurants. Click here for more information on NO/AIDS.

The Louisiana Community AIDS Partnership, in collaboration with the National AIDS Fund, the Elton John AIDS Foundation and local funding partners announce the availability of up to $115,000 in grant funding to strengthen organizational or programmatic infrastructure and policy and advocacy as they relate to HIV/AIDS issues across Louisiana. Deadline for submission is January 11, 2010, 4 p.m. CST. Download the full application instructions.

Today is World AIDS Day, a day dedicated to raising awareness about HIV and AIDS around the world. In 2006, Louisiana ranked 5th highest in AIDS case rates and 12th in the number of AIDS cases diagnosed - Baton Rouge and Greater New Orleans continue to lead the rest of the state in HIV/AIDS-related rates. Getting tested and knowing your HIV status is crucial. This site allows you to find a testing center in your area by zip code.