AIDS prevention

With my soccer season coming to an end I finally was able to create some time spaces in my schedule to volunteer at the MCC.I went together with Misbah and Devin and we made condom packs.As in almost any aspect of life it was a lot easier and more fun to do it in a group.It makes it also a lot easier to actually go volunteer if you do not just do it by yourself.I actually enjoyed the packing because it was such an easy job that required no brainwork at all.It was kind of relaxing after a busy week of school and thanksgiving break just about to start.
One of the things we put into each packet was a little card that read something along the lines of: The only safe sex is with a condom.This caught my attention and I decided to look some stats up about AIDS.According to aids.about.com in december 2006 there were 25993 (19.7 per 100000) cases of HIV in Houston which is the most for any major city in texas.Since I am not really familiar with this topic and did not want to go further into the analysis of this data I thought it would be interesting to compare it to my hometown Munich, Germany.As I was trying to find the HIV data for Munich an assumption that I made was confirmed.It was really hard to find any data and I believe it is because AIDS/HIV is a subject in Germany that people try to avoid.So finally I found some data from the Robert-Koch-Institut which said that the were 9400 cases in all of Bavaria for 2010.Even though I am not sure this data is comparable on a one to one basis since there are different types of AIDS/HIV victims and I am not sure whether these included the same definition.Anyways matter of fact is that the number of people infected seems to be a lot lower in germany than here.One of the reasons I consider valid is the fact that Germany is not quite at America's level when it come to tolerance so that there are many gays in Germany who do not come out or repress their feelings.I can only see this as the reason since both countries are equally well developed in medicine and prevention as well as AIDS awareness.