Capital has severe HIV epidemic, report finds

Capital has severe HIV epidemic, report finds
The setting sun casts an orange glow on passing clouds over the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington September 19, 2006. (Jason Reed/Reuters)WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Washington, D.C., has the highestrate of AIDS in the United States, and more babies are bornwith the AIDS virus in Washington than in other U.S. cities,according to a report released on Monday.
People living in Washington also are not getting tested forHIV and show up with advanced infections that progress quicklyto AIDS, the report by city health officials found.
The report found that Washington, with a population ofaround 600,000 people, has a rate of 128 AIDS cases per 100,000people in 2006, compared with a national rate of 14 cases per100,000. The city accounted for 9 percent of all pediatric AIDScases in the United States during 2005.
"The District's rate for newly reported AIDS cases ishigher than rates in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City,Detroit and Chicago," the report said.
Of the 12,428 people infected with HIV in Washington, 80percent are black, the report found. More than 8,300 had fullyprogressed to AIDS and 224 died of AIDS in 2006.
"Heterosexual contact in the District is the leading modeof HIV transmission at 37 percent of newly reported infections,while nationally men who have sex with men lead newtransmissions," it said.
The report, the first to look at the HIV epidemic inWashington specifically, found that nearly 70 percent of allpeople with HIV developed full-blown AIDS within a year, whichmeans they were diagnosed years after having been infected.
This compares with 39 percent nationally.
Dr. Shannon Hader of Washington's Department of Health saidthe report does not examine why Washington is hit so hard bythe human immunodeficiency virus.
A LITTLE OF EVERYTHING
"We have a lot of transmission going on amongheterosexuals, we have a lot of transmission going on with menwho have sex with men and we have a lot of transmission amonginjecting drug users," Hader said in a telephone interview.
Washington has a unique status among U.S. cities. When itwas established as the U.S. capital, it was kept apart fromstates and put under congressional management, although it hasan elected mayor and city council.
Hader said the city has adopted a policy of routine HIVtesting, which means people should get the test whenever theyget a check-up or visit an emergency room.
Currently, people usually have to specifically ask to betested for HIV.
Hader said the city aimed to reduce mother-to-childtransmission of HIV to zero by 2009 with better testing andtreatment of pregnant women. Women who take HIV drugs aroundthe time of delivery are far less likely to transmit the virusto their babies.
Chip Lewis of the Whitman-Walker clinic, an HIV treatmentcenter in Washington, said the report shows the need foruniversal HIV testing.
"This is a 100 percent preventable disease," Lewis said bytelephone. Yet one in 20 adults in Washington has HIV and onein 50 has AIDS, he noted.
"HIV and AIDS has really become a disease that grows inareas of poverty. There is lots of poverty in the District,"Lewis said.The United Nations estimates that 33 million people areinfected with the AIDS virus globally, about a million of themin the United States.(Editing by Will Dunham and Philip Barbara)