Local HIV Testing Sites
From the Whitman-Walker Clinic website:
PROFILE OF THE EPIDEMIC
The DC Department of Health's HIV/AIDS Administration has confirmed that three percent of the adult population of the District of Columbia has been diagnosed with HIV. However, the actual number of people living with HIV in DC is likely to be five-six percent.
In DC, heterosexual sex is the most common mode of infection, followed by men having sex with men, then injection drug use.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now estimate that more than one million Americans are living with HIV. Up to one-third of them do not know they are HIV-positive.
DC has the highest rate of new AIDS cases per 100,000 population in the United States -- a rate that is 12 times the national average.
In DC, 81 percent of all AIDS cases are among African-Americans.
More than 15,000 people in the Washington metropolitan area live with AIDS. Tens of thousands more people are estimated to be infected with HIV.
Nationwide, someone under the age of 25 is infected with HIV every 30 minutes.
African-Americans represent only 13 percent of the total U.S. population, but made up nearly half (47 percent) of all new AIDS cases reported in the United States in 2007.
African-Americans are estimated to make up nearly 40 percent of the annual new HIV infections:
– 57 percent of all infections in women in 2007
– 34 percent of all infections in men in 2007
– 39 percent of all total infections in 2007
In 2002, AIDS was the second leading cause of death for African-Americans age 35-44.
Researchers estimate that one in 50 African-American men and one in 60 African-American women are infected with HIV.
In 2007, more African-Americans were reported with AIDS than any other racial group:
17,507 (47 percent) of the 37,041 new AIDS cases reported that year were among African-Americans
Almost two-thirds (63 percent) of all women reported with AIDS in 2007 were African-American
The rate of reported AIDS cases among African-Americans was 77 per 100,000 population, nearly three times the rate for Hispanics and nearly nine times greater than the rate for whites.
HIV/AIDS is spreading especially fast among African-American men
Thirty-two percent of African-American men who have sex with men (MSM) were found to be infected with HIV in a six-city study of men ages 23-29, compared to 14 percent of Latinos and seven percent of whites in the study.
African-American men who have sex with men are at two to three times higher risk for HIV infection than white MSM. This may be because cultural bias causes a disproportionate number of African-American men to resist identifying as gay or bisexual and, therefore, not take precautions.
For more Congress Heights and River East news visit The Congress Heights Examiner website, http://www.examiner.com/x-13507-Congress-Heights-Community-Examiner
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