Report: DC Has Highest AIDS Rate in America
DC health officials revealed:
The District of Columbia has the highest rate of AIDS infection of any city in the country and the disease is being transmitted to infants, older adults, women and heterosexual men at an epidemic pace, according to a report released Monday by city health officials.
The report said more than 12,400 people in the city — about 1 in 50 — are living with AIDS or H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS.
“H.I.V./AIDS in the district has become a modern epidemic with complexities and challenges that continue to threaten the lives and well-being of far too many residents,” said the report, which includes the first-ever study of statistics on H.I.V. in the city, along with updated data on AIDS cases. The H.I.V. data offers a vital snapshot of the most recent infections so health officials can study any changes in transmission patterns, the officials said.
The city’s AIDS prevention office has been faulted in the past as not keeping proper data to track and fight the disease, and the director of the office is the 13th in just over two decades, a turnover rate that has hampered its focus, advocates for AIDS patients said.
The report said that from 2001 to 2006, 56 children, ages 13 or younger, were found to have either H.I.V. or AIDS, and almost all of them were infected at birth.
These cases, which account for 6 percent of all mother-to-child H.I.V. infections in the nation in the last five years, were especially alarming, city officials said, because they could have been avoided with routine H.I.V. testing during pregnancy, quick-results oral swabs during labor and “fast tracking” of the anti-retroviral drugs that can prevent transmission during delivery.
Although black residents account for 57 percent of the city’s population of 500,000 or so, they account for 81 percent of new reports of H.I.V. cases and about 86 percent of people with AIDS.
The report also found that the disease spread through heterosexual contact in more than 37 percent of the cases detected from 2001 to last year, in contrast with the 25 percent of cases attributable to men having sex with men. Starting in 2004, the number of new H.I.V. cases among men and women ages 40 to 49 outpaced every other age group in the city.
(NYT)
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Nature has its little ways …
November 27th, 2007 at 12:17 pmWell, big surprise with the plethora of dirt bags within the beltway, quite a few of them on Capitol Hill.
November 27th, 2007 at 12:32 pmI believe that I have the cure!!
Ban AIDS in Washington CD!!
Look how effective their handgun ban has been at keeping people from getting guns
November 27th, 2007 at 3:38 pmMake that DC…LOL.
Damned spell check isn’t working tonight
November 27th, 2007 at 3:39 pmThe top of that building looks like two eyes peering through a klan hat….weird
November 27th, 2007 at 6:28 pmBut, we must embrace the cultural difference that mens(sic) don’t use prophylactics.
November 28th, 2007 at 2:30 amWhat do you call a run of AIDS in the Heart of Darkness (Aka Washington DC)?
A good start.
November 29th, 2007 at 3:45 pm