'A Modern Epidemic'
A study reveals the tight grip of HIV and AIDS on the District.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

THE STATISTICS in the "District of Columbia HIV/AIDS Epidemiology Annual Report 2007" -- the first to detail the local reach of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS -- are harrowing. But with a new director of HIV-AIDS administration, plenty of funding and, now, data, the District stands a chance of beating back this killer that has no cure.

AIDS is devastating the District. While there are 14 cases per 100,000 people in the United States, the rate is a staggering 128.4 cases per 100,000 here. That's higher than New York, Baltimore or Philadelphia. More people became HIV-positive through heterosexual sex (37 percent) than through men having sex with men (27 percent) or intravenous drug use (14 percent). Twenty-two percent of infections occurred by unknown modes of transmission.

African Americans are bearing the brunt of what the report calls "a modern epidemic." They make up 81 percent of new HIV infections reported between Jan. 1, 2001, and Nov. 16, 2006. African Americans account for about 86 percent of those living with AIDS but an estimated 57 percent of the District's population during that time. Black women comprise 90 percent of new HIV infections among women, and 93 percent of women living with AIDS. They are only 58 percent of the District's female population. And African Americans account for more than 95 percent of the 56 children born between 2001 and 2006 who have AIDS or are HIV-positive but have not developed AIDS. Whites comprise 12.7 percent of those living with HIV and AIDS, and Hispanics, 4.9 percent.

Shannon L. Hader, who became the District's HIV-AIDS administrator last month, is a former official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who once headed the CDC's operations in Zimbabwe. "We have plenty of money," she told us yesterday. "We have the technological expertise. And now we have the data to target resources more effectively."

Good. These heart-wrenching statistics demand action -- not just by government, but by everyone. Doctors and hospitals need to routinely test pregnant women for HIV; there is no excuse for infants becoming infected. Prevention and treatment efforts must be accelerated, a goal to which Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and Dr. Hader committed themselves yesterday. But their efforts will be useless if people think they are somehow immune to the epidemic. AIDS is an equal-opportunity killer.