HIV in the District is Out of Control

According to the Sunday’s Washington Post, you’re more likely to get HIV than win the lottery if you live in Washington, DC.  In an article on the front page, and above the fold, the Washington Post reports on the severe epidemic of HIV/AIDS in the nation’s capitol, yes the same place where President Obama lives:

At least 3 percent of District residents have HIV or AIDS, a total that far surpasses the 1 percent threshold that constitutes a “generalized and severe” epidemic, according to a report scheduled to be released…..That translates into 2,984 residents per every 100,000 over the age of 12 — or 15,120 — according to the 2008 epidemiology report by the District’s HIV/AIDS office.

Seriously?

“Our rates are higher than West Africa,” said Shannon L. Hader, director of the District’s HIV/AIDS Administration, who once led the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s work in Zimbabwe. “They’re on par with Uganda and some parts of Kenya.”

I do not think most can appreciate the severity of the above observation. Washington, D.C. HIV/AIDS rates are higher than West Africa.

And the article goes on to tell of an increase in every mode of transmission: homosexual, heterosexual, and intravenous drug use. So it doesn’t appear that any particular group is getting the point, or at least if they get it, they don’t care given three out of five individuals know their HIV status, but even still, only three in 10 used a condom the last time they had sex.

For single black women, it is incredibly damning that black men in the district carry the weight of the disease, and that the District’s HIV/AIDS population is aging with almost 1 in 10 residents between the ages of 40 and 49 having the virus.

This is an incredible public health hazard that cannot be ignored.

Get tested. Know your partner’s status. Have enough respect for yourself to require your partner to get tested. Love doesn’t hurt, and love doesn’t kill. Don’t get it confused.

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