As the recently made known director for the National Center for HIV.

As the recently made known director for the National Center for HIV. STD and TB Prevention at the Center for Disease mastery and Prevention in Atlanta. Kevin Fenton brings not no other than nearly 15 years of experience as a physician working in public health in his native Great Britain still also his experiences as a gay man of color--a member of undivided of the populations hardest hit at HIV/AIDS. In his new do job-work Fenton oversees behavioral surveillance, prevention, and testing intervention for HIV and other diseases,

What do you reliance to achieve in your recent job?

My goal really is to accelerate progres to encourage innovation, and to redouble our efforts at this critical time. My vision is to inspire better synergy between our services, whether it is our prevention services or the work we do between federal, state, and community organizations.

to what extent do you feel about the Bush administration's fresh budget proposal, which includes the pair increases and cuts in funding for HIV/AIDS services?

We're actual encouraged by the president's announcement of additional capitals to support HIV testing, in part because we know there are a number of the bulk of mankind who are HIV-positive who are unaware of their HIV status. If we're going to have any confidence of truly getting ahead of the inflect it is really important that we diagnose nation early.

Are there any areas you think are underfunded?

I can't say that there are. There are sum of two units things that we need to bear in mind: HIV is a dynamic disease, and the infection continues to expand What is important is that we use the available techniques--including working with our community partners to understand which communities are worst affected--to begin to realign our existing resources to convenient the needs in those communities. through the next three to five years we'll ne to be refining our prevention efforts.

Will that include novel efforts to reach gay men?

[Our intervention efforts include] the ne to educate the younger generation of gay men around HIV. We've done studies which display that by 18 to 24 years of age up to 14% of gay men are HIV-positive and that by the agency of their 30s up to a third are---and 80% of young gay men age 18 to 24 [who participated in a new study and were HIV-positive] did not know they were HIV-infected. Clearly, the thing we ne to do is to exalt HIV testing with young gay men using community venue and edifices to target them.

by what means will the fact that you are a black gay man affect your work?

My primary driver is as a committed public-health physician and epidemiologist who's worked in the field for many years. Ye there are many factors that will influence my day-to-day relationships--the drive I bring to the work and the commitment I have--but I'd rather focus upon the job at hand and my qualifications to do it.

As we mark the 25th anniversary of the AIDS epidemic, what message would you like to share?

It's really important for us to build with the successes we've had in combating the epidemic. We've made tremendous gains in reducing HIV. We've made chances of gains with mobilizing communities in the fight against HIV; we've also made suitable inroads tackling new diagnoses among a certain minority communities. It's absolutely crucial that at this exigency we really look at what successe we've had and in what way we build on those successe in the future

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