DC Clinic finds shocking increase in HIV; City Admin points at committed couples avoiding condoms
”[Looking at the Clinic’s HIV-infection numbers from the first half of this year]. In the same period this year, we’ve seen 266 new HIV cases. During the same period last year, it was 80 case. It was shocking…. We have not seen a drastic increase like this, except for, back in the day when HIV was first coming about and probably back in the early ’90s.” — Dr. Raymond Martin of Whitman-Walker Clinic.
”I don’t think we see an indication that there’s a huge upsurge in new transmissions…. If we are truly successful in our intention of getting as many people as possible to know their status and know their status routinely, our number of cases that we know about is going to jump…. [Looking at areas of DC with high HIV & poverty rates] there wasn’t a lot of [traditional high risk] behaviors…. We found out, well, a lot of folks weren’t using condoms. Dig a little deeper, in these regular committed relationships, ‘Do you know your partner’s HIV status’ [50% said no, and 50% thought they might be having sex outside of the relationship.]… We didn’t find that HIV transmission was going on because people have 10, 20, 30 sex partners. That wasn’t what was driving it. It was very normal, normative relationships in a setting of a lot of HIV.” — Dr. Shannon Hader of the DC HIV AIDS Administration
Portion of a news cast from WAMU that examined the reasons why new HIV/AIDS rates continue an alarming rise in DC, especially among gay and black populations. Whitman-Walker Clinic is the District of Columbia’s largest HIV testing facility and also provides health care services specifically for gay, lesbian and other minority populations. (WAMU News)
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