US capital has severe HIV/AIDS epidemic, report finds*

26 Nov 2007 22:25:07 GMT
Source: Reuters

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON, Nov 26 (Reuters) - Washington, D.C., has the highest rate of
AIDS in the United States, and more babies are born with 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 for HIV and show
up with advanced infections that progress quickly to AIDS, the report by
city health officials found.

The report found that Washington, with a population of around 600,000
people, has a rate of 128 AIDS cases per 100,000 people in 2006,
compared with a national rate of 14 cases per 100,000. The city
accounted for 9 percent of all pediatric AIDS cases in the United States
during 2005.

"The District's rate for newly reported AIDS cases is higher than rates
in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City, Detroit and Chicago," the
report said.

Of the 12,428 people infected with HIV in Washington, 80 percent are
black, the report found. More than 8,300 had fully progressed to AIDS
and 224 died of AIDS in 2006.

"Heterosexual contact in the District is the leading mode of HIV
transmission at 37 percent of newly reported infections, while
nationally men who have sex with men lead new transmissions," it said.

The report, the first to look at the HIV epidemic in Washington
specifically, found that nearly 70 percent of all people with HIV
developed full-blown AIDS within a year, which means they were diagnosed
years after having been infected.

This compares with 39 percent nationally.

Dr. Shannon Hader of Washington's Department of Health said the report
does not examine why Washington is hit so hard by the human
immunodeficiency virus.

A LITTLE OF EVERYTHING

"We have a lot of transmission going on among heterosexuals, we have a
lot of transmission going on with men who have sex with men and we have
a lot of transmission among injecting drug users," Hader said in a
telephone interview.

Washington has a unique status among U.S. cities. When it was
established as the U.S. capital, it was kept apart from states and put
under congressional management, although it has an elected mayor and
city council.

Hader said the city has adopted a policy of routine HIV testing, which
means people should get the test whenever they get a check-up or visit
an emergency room.

Currently, people usually have to specifically ask to be tested for HIV.

Hader said the city aimed to reduce mother-to-child transmission of HIV
to zero by 2009 with better testing and treatment of pregnant women.
Women who take HIV drugs around the time of delivery are far less likely
to transmit the virus to their babies.

Chip Lewis of the Whitman-Walker clinic, an HIV treatment center in
Washington, said the report shows the need for universal HIV testing.

"This is a 100 percent preventable disease," Lewis said by telephone.
Yet one in 20 adults in Washington has HIV and one in 50 has AIDS, he noted.

"HIV and AIDS has really become a disease that grows in areas of
poverty. There is lots of poverty in the District," Lewis said.

The United Nations estimates that 33 million people are infected with
the AIDS virus globally, about a million of them in the United States.
(Editing by Will Dunham and Philip Barbara)