New HIV stats cause anxiety for Georgia’s LGBT community

published on May 31, 2016 by Patrick Saunders, in Georgia Voice

In June 2014, a team of HIV/AIDS activists from New York teamed up with Atlanta activists to call out the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on their strategies and sense of urgency regarding the fight against HIV/AIDS. They also met with the CDC’s HIV prevention personnel to discuss their concerns and present them with The Atlanta Principles, a series of proposed actions they believed the CDC should take.

Nearly two years since then, activists are getting more frustrated as new and more alarming information on HIV/AIDS in Atlanta and across the state continues to surface every few months. A new report authored by researchers at Emory University’s Rollins School for Public Health reveals that men who have sex with men (MSM) account for approximately two-thirds of all new HIV diagnoses each year, and the highest rates of infection are in the South.

Results indicated:

There were six states where more than 15 percent of MSM were living with diagnosed HIV infection in 2012, all of which were in the US South
Of the 25 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) with the highest levels of MSM living with an HIV diagnosis, 21 were located in Southern states
Estimates showed in 2012, at least one in four MSM were diagnosed with HIV in the following MSAs: Jackson, MS; Columbia, SC; El Paso, TX; Augusta, GA; Baton Rouge, LA

The Atlanta/Sandy Springs/Roswell, Georgia MSA was 13th out of 25 MSAs listed, with a rate of 16.43 diagnosed HIV-positive per 100 MSM. According to a recent CDC study, the risk of diagnosis for Georgia residents (MSM or not, male or female) is one in 51. And one Emory University AIDS researcher compared downtown Atlanta to third-world African countries when it comes to HIV/AIDS infections.

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New HIV stats cause anxiety for Georgia’s LGBT community

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