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| Bob Summersgill of the Gay & Lesbian Activist Alliance, says the D.C. government needs to take some of the blame for the city having the largest increase in AIDS cases of major U.S. cities. (Photo courtesy of GLAA) |
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HOME > NEWS > LOCAL
By: LAUREL FAUST COMMENTS
 
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said that Washington has a large gay and African-American
community, which contribute to the high incidence rate.
Eighty percent of AIDS diagnoses in the District are from among African Americans,
who make up 61 percent of the city’s population.
Bullock said the average life expectancy of a black male in the District is
56 years.
Ron Simmons, president of Us Helping Us, a community-based AIDS service organization
committed to reducing HIV infection among African Americans, said that many
bisexual black men don’t know they are infected with the virus, and they
go ahead to unwittingly infect their wives and girlfriends.
“So many women who end up infected are monogamous women. It’s
their partner that’s infected,” Simmons said.
He said that too many people are assuming they don’t need to get tested
and aren’t at risk.
“That’s not true,” Simmons said. “They are at risk.”
Michael Cover, deputy executive of public affairs for the Whitman Walker Clinic,
said another reason for the high rate of AIDS cases is that many people aren’t
getting tested for HIV until late in the progression of the illness. A person
with HIV who doesn’t get treated will eventually develop AIDS.
“Many are HIV-positive and don’t know it,” Cover said. “The
reason they don’t get tested is that they don’t perceive themselves
to be at risk.”
Cover said young people especially are not getting tested.
“They didn’t come to sexual maturity in the height of the crisis.
So they’ve never lost friends to AIDS, and they’ve got friends
who are HIV-positive who are taking pills and are healthy.”
The AIDS cocktail drugs have been known to prolong the lives of persons infected
with HIV.
A “Basic Statistics” report by the Centers for Disease Control
states that half of all new HIV infections annually are thought to occur in
young people under 25, and the majority of them are infected sexually.
HAA’s written response to the Blade reported that youth aged 13-19 represented
less than 1 percent of the reported AIDS cases, but the age group accounted
for 43 percent of chlamydia cases and 25 percent of gonorrhea cases, which
indicates that young people are practicing behaviors that can expose them to
AIDS.
Cover said that the city has a “very poor public health system.”
“HIV is as much a disease of poverty as it is of<
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