CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Today marks World AIDS Day, observed internationally to remember those lost to the HIV/AIDS epidemic and raise awareness about the disease.

In one of Ohio's most populous counties, health professionals are working to ensure people living with HIV have the services they need. Cuyahoga County's "Ryan White HIV/AIDS Part A" program has provided health services to those who do not have adequate insurance or financial resources since 1996.

Zach Levar, grant supervisor for the Cuyahoga County Board of Health, said one silver lining of the pandemic was learning how providers could reach more people through telemedicine.

"Clients that may not have wanted care in person might have found it a little bit more convenient to FaceTime with their doctor and check in with them that way," Levar explained. "Our clients have definitely appreciated it, we've heard anecdotally that different clients that may have been out of care are now linked to care because they've been able to access via telehealth."

Twenty-one percent of Ohioans who have been diagnosed with HIV live in Cuyahoga County, according to state data.

Levar said in honor of World AIDS Day, the county Board of Health has launched its first newsletter dedicated to HIV-related news and resources. It also plans to launch a social media campaign to help fight the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS.

Services the Ryan White program provides in the Greater Cleveland area include help applying for housing and benefits support, mental health resources, and group education for people recently diagnosed. Levar said the Board of Health has received two grants focused on HIV care and prevention, to help connect with at-risk residents.

"We've started working with the state to figure out who is not in care and trying to figure out ways to best reach those individuals," Levar outlined. "Figure out what their barriers are, really meet them where they are, and get them engaged in care, so that they can achieve the best health outcomes for themselves."

The two grants, totaling about $2 million, were awarded by the Health Resources and Services Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

LANSING, Mich. - Organizers of a summit about sexual health will provide a safe space on Friday for young Michiganders to have open, honest and affirming conversations about HIV prevention and care.

More than 15,000 Michigan residents live with HIV, and the stigma associated with it often keeps people from getting tested and knowing their status.

Natasha Thomas, Genesee County program coordinator for the Michigan Organization on Adolescent Sexual Health, said it's important that young people are able to talk about HIV and sexual health.

"HIV is something that we should be aware of, it's something that we should be educated about, but it's not necessarily something that we should fear," she said. "It's not something that we should stigmatize."

She said the "HIV and You(th) Summit" is geared toward folks ages 13 to 24 and adults who work with youths. It will feature workshops on knowing your own medical rights, what it means to live with HIV, medications for prevention and care - such sa PrEP and PEP - and laws and history surrounding HIV and the LGBTQ community.

Thomas added that it's also important that conversations about prevention and care debunk myths about HIV and how it is transmitted. She said there are few spaces where young people can go to get up-to-date, medically accurate information about sexual health.

"A lot of young people then turn to their peers, or they turn to the internet," she said, "where they then have to kind of weed through all of this information - some of it accurate, some of it not."

Thomas said she hopes attendees will leave the summit with resources and services they can look to, on an ongoing basis. Health experts urge people who are sexually active to learn their HIV status through regular testing at a clinic, hospital or community health center.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - A bill that went into effect over the weekend makes the first reforms to Missouri's HIV criminalization laws since they were passed in the 1980s.

Among other measures related to prosecutors and police, the bill requires prosecutors to prove someone knowingly exposed someone else who contracted HIV before getting a felony conviction, and reduces the minimum sentence from 10 to three years.

Rico Bush, communications director at Empower Missouri, said research shows HIV criminalization laws do not reduce the spread of HIV, but they do increase stigma and discourage people from getting tested - if they worry knowing their status could leave them vulnerable to conviction.

"It actually was deterring from people getting tested and actually knowing their true status," said Bush. "And then once you know your status, then you can get the help that's needed. We really want people to be educated about how HIV is passed, and also to get rid of the stigma surrounding HIV."

Bush said while there's more to be done, these reforms are an important step. He added that Empower Missouri and other advocates for reducing the stigma around HIV are working to educate people about medications they can take to curb the spread.

More than 13,000 Missourians currently live with HIV. Bush added there also are disparities in enforcement of criminalization laws.

"Since 1990, we know that more than 100 people in Missouri have been convicted of, you know, an HIV crime," said Bush. "And Black men account for half of HIV crime arrests and convictions in the state, of course, this despite being only 5.5% of the state population."

A bill introduced in Congress would incentivize states to eliminate their HIV criminalization laws, the REPEAL HIV Discrimination Act.

Earlier this year, Missouri became the third state to allow pharmacists to dispense HIV medication, like PrEP and PEP, without a prescription from a doctor.

WORCESTER, Ma. -- This Sunday is National HIV Testing Day, when people are urged to find out their HIV status and work to end the stigma around HIV and AIDS.

Lamar Brown-Noguera, community relations manager for AIDS Project Worcester, said many of the group's services were paused at the beginning of the pandemic, until it was able to get the proper personal protective equipment, and testing numbers still are not where they were pre-pandemic.

Brown-Noguera emphasized the importance of staying up-to-date on sexual health, every day of the year.

"Being an individual in a relationship where I have a partner who is HIV-positive, and I'm HIV negative, it's even more of an important incentive in even my own personal life to have a regular testing and checkup routine," Brown-Noguera explained.

They added testing for HIV is available at AIDS Project Worcester on Tuesdays and Fridays from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., and encouraged Commonwealth residents to reach out to their own local agency that provides testing for more information or service referrals.

Brown-Noguera pointed out in the last year-and-a-half with stay-at-home mandates, fewer people were making the effort to go out and get tested. They expect demand for testing, as well as prevention and treatment services, to increase as more people get vaccinated against COVID-19 and start to interact more.

"Cases of, let's say, hookups and one-night stands will happen more often," Brown-Noguera noted. "We are seeing more and more that need to know and that access for testing, and need for barrier methods, condoms, PrEP [pre-exposure prophylaxis] and PEP [post-exposure prophylaxis] and all that."

Officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, echo the call for people to get tested. This year in particular, they're raising awareness of the many ways and places to do so, including self-tests at home.

Many local health departments and community organizations distribute free HIV self-tests, which also can be purchased at pharmacies or online.