Volunteer advocates from the Virginia Organization Responding to AIDS lobbied January 30 for state officials to increase funding for HIV prevention, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports (inrich.com, 1/31).

More than 60 activists went from office to office to encourage legislators to support budget amendments that would increase HIV prevention programs targeting people ages 25 and younger, and those using methamphetamines in Virginia, where an estimated 19,000 people are HIV positive. The Times-Dispatch reports that African Americans are disproportionately affected by HIV, accounting for nearly 12,000 of those cases.

“Believe it or not, as long as HIV/AIDS has been around, there are still people who I don’t think are paying attention to the consequences of it,” says Dennis Buie, an outreach specialist with Richmond’s Minority Health Consortium, Inc. “Some people don’t even know how to put on a condom.”