Washington, D.C. -
Roughly 3 percent of Washington, D.C. residents have HIV or AIDS according to a new report due for release Monday from D.C. health officials. Additionally, almost 10 percent of District residents between the ages of 40 and 49 has HIV or AIDS.
The national average is only 1 percent, and at the height of the epidemic in San Francisco, roughly 4 percent of its population was HIV positive.
"Our rates are higher than West Africa," Shannon L. Hader, director of the District's HIV/AIDS Administration, told the Washington Post. "They're on par with Uganda and some parts of Kenya."
Men having sex with men has remained the leading mode of transmission for the disease. Heterosexual transmission and injection drug use closely follow, the report says.
"We have every mode of transmission" -- men having sex with men, heterosexual and injected drug use -- "going up, all on the rise, and we have to deal with them," Hader said.
According to the report, more than three-quarters — 76 percent — of the HIV infected are black, 70 percent are men and 70 percent are age 40 and older.
Three percent far surpasses the 1 percent threshold that constitutes a "generalized and severe" epidemic according to the report.
The national average is only 1 percent, and at the height of the epidemic in San Francisco, roughly 4 percent of its population was HIV positive.
"Our rates are higher than West Africa," Shannon L. Hader, director of the District's HIV/AIDS Administration, told the Washington Post. "They're on par with Uganda and some parts of Kenya."
Men having sex with men has remained the leading mode of transmission for the disease. Heterosexual transmission and injection drug use closely follow, the report says.
"We have every mode of transmission" -- men having sex with men, heterosexual and injected drug use -- "going up, all on the rise, and we have to deal with them," Hader said.
According to the report, more than three-quarters — 76 percent — of the HIV infected are black, 70 percent are men and 70 percent are age 40 and older.
Three percent far surpasses the 1 percent threshold that constitutes a "generalized and severe" epidemic according to the report.
