VIENNA, AUSTRIA -- In mid June the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released troubling new data. Researchers reported that the HIV/AIDS caseload in Milwaukee, Wisconsin is soaring--especially among men who have sex with other men, called MSM in public health jargon. Since 2000, the CDC has reported an "alarming" 160 percent increase in the number of new HIV infections among younger Black gay and bisexual men.

“This is a very serious public health threat,” says Mike Gifford, chief operating officer of AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin, which is adding “a staff member to do outreach and counseling with Black MSM," reports Milwaukee News Buzz.

Just like the recent reports of escalating Black MSM seroconversions in Chicago, New York, Charlotte and other cities, the Milwaukee data barely made a "blip" on the local news. But as the rate of HIV infections among Black gay and bisexual mencontinues to rise with no end in sight, their specific health needs and concerns are now reaching a global platform at the 18th International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2010) in Vienna.

On the day before the conference officially opened, an all-day pre-conference event addressed the soaring global rates of MSM seroconversions. BE HEARD was organized by The Global Forum on MSM & HIV and featured the debut of the Johns Hopkins-World Bank's global survey of HIV epidemics.

"It's not just in America," said Gregorio Millett, the senior policy adviser in the White House Office of National AIDS Policy, at a panel on HIV infections among African and Caribbean MSM. "Black men who have sex with men are at greater risk for HIV across the world." Millett, who was profiled byBlack AIDS Weekly last February, added, "Black MSM are disproportionately affected by the HIV epidemic in the United States, in Canada, in Great Britain … across Africa and the Caribbean. And in each case, there are high rates of seropositivity and high rates of unknown diagnosis."

A June 2009 study by the Chicago Department of Public Health found that Black gay and bisexual men under the age of 35 were "seven times more likely" to be HIV positive than their White counterparts. And the vast majority who tested positive--some two-thirds--were "unaware of their positive status."

The high rates of unknown diagnoses are even more critical in the developing world and the Black Diaspora, according to the Hopkins Study, where Black MSM rightfully fear that learning their serostatus will encourage even more stigma and homophobia.