Mayor Bill de Blasio, along with other city officials, joined the Health Department Monday to unveil a new report and launch a new ad campaign on World AIDS Day.
The new report shows HIV diagnoses are at an all-time low, despite the fact that more than 1.2 million people in the U.S. are still living with HIV.
Statistics show the community accounted for an estimated 44 percent of new HIV infections in 2010. They also accounted for 41 percent of people living with an HIV infection in 2011.
The data also shows almost one in seven people are unaware of their infection, which is why health officials say it's important to get tested.
There are several locations in Brooklyn to get tested, including the Bed-Stuy Family Center, on Fulton Street. Another is at Help/PSI on Sterling Place and at MIC Women's Services on Eastern Parkway.
SUNY Downstate Medical Center says there were 246 new cases of HIV in Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights since January 2013.
According to the program director at the Bed-Stuy Family Center, half of all new infections are people under 30, globally and in the United States. She says most people who were impacted were people of color and those involved in homosexual male relations.
The center says it is offering new medication that it says can help prevent HIV. Its call Prep - the same medication that patients with HIV take, but given to people who are considered higher-risk for infection.
The center says its goal for 2015 is zero new infections and zero deaths from HIV-related diseases.