The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Thursday marked National Latino AIDS Awareness Day by urging Latinos to not be afraid when it comes to discussing issues surrounding the prevention of the immune deficiency syndrome.

Across the United States, Latinos are disproportionately affected by HIV and make up 21 percent of people living with the virus that causes AIDS, the CDC pointed out. Statistics for 2013 showed that Latinos had the second highest rate of new HIV diagnoses compared with other ethnicities, the federal health body added.

Guillermo Chacon, who leads the Latino Commission on AIDS, which coordinates Latino AIDS Awareness Day, told NBC News that the day's date was purposefully chosen.

"When we launched this event, we picked October 15 because it is the last day of Hispanic Heritage Month," Chacon said. "It is a good way to remind people that we must celebrate our heritage, but that we need to be proactive about health issues that affect our community, like HIV/AIDS."

To prevent the spread of the infection, it is important that people take steps to protect themselves and those they care about, the CDC recommended.

The agency's experts want risk groups including people with more than one sex partner, sexually active gay and bisexual men, people who have other sexually transmitted diseases and those who inject drugs to be tested for the virus at least once a year. Everyone else who is between the ages of 13 and 64 should be tested for HIV at least once, the CDC added.

Such testing is critical because 15 percent of Latinos who have HIV do not know that they are infected, Kenneth Dominguez, a medical epidemiologist with the CDC, told NBC News.

Meanwhile, the Atlanta-based agency noted that sexually active individuals should be aware of the simple steps they can take to minimize the risk of becoming infected with the virus. They include the use of condoms every time they have sex, choosing less risky sexual behaviors and, in certain cases, the possibility of taking a pre-exposure prophylaxis medication that can help lower the likelihood of HIV transmission.