Well, so much for a break from the doom and gloom. The latest update on the status of HIV/AIDS in Washington, D.C. is in and the news is not good.
The District now has a rate of 3 percent of its residents who are HIV-positive, a rate that surpasses that in West Africa and means that The District has surpassed the criteria for a "generalized and severe epidemic."
African-American women represent nearly a quarter of HIV cases in D.C. African-American men continue to bear the brunt of the statistics though. An astonishing 7 percent of black men in D.C. are HIV-positive.
Aaron Morrissey of the DCist had this to say about the District’s reaction and plan to address this deepening crisis, "Certainly, it’s sobering to think about why it took the District until 2005 to start to really ramp up HIV/AIDS preventative services — and considering that timeline, origins for these massive figures start to become clearer. But if there is a bright side to this story, it is that D.C. has been steadily improving in the four years since…But even as such strides are taken, the battle cry has barely changed: in order to fight these incredible figures, there must be a steady maintenance of ‘determination and commitment from the District’s public officials.’ Anything less would be doubly as frustrating."
DC Appleseed, a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation, was quoted in The Washington Post piece and their report card, HIV in the Nation’s Capital, was referenced in the DCist blog.
Just as the economic crisis has served as a tremendous call to action to rethink business as usual and refocus the nation’s economic priorities, we can only hope that these latest findings on a critical health issue for the District will spur action to find sustainable, effective strategies to prevent the further spread of this epidemic and care to treat those who are already affected.
Lisa Kays is The Women’s Foundation’s Director of Communications.
