African-American women are five times more likely to contract HIV in the following six cities than are black women across the rest of America. Rates of infection come close to those of some sub-Saharan African countries.
Researchers at world-renowned Johns Hopkins discovered found that in the following cities the annual rate of infection was 24 per 10,000 black women. Nationally, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports that black women become infected at a rate of 5 per 10,000.
These percentages are approaching the astronomical HIV/AIDS rates in the Congo, which has a rate of 28 per 10,000. Cities on this list are also high up on the list of cities with the highest rates of herpes contraction in the United States.
The study was conducted with funding from the National Institutes of Health by researchers who are part of a national consortium called the HIV Prevention Trials Network. The data were presented March 8 at the 19th annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Seattle.
Dr. William A. Blattner, chairman of the City’s Commission on HIV/AIDS Prevention and Treatment, which developed the Baltimore plan to reduce infections, said “HIV continues to impact our most vulnerable and marginalized, in particular economically disadvantaged women whose risk is compounded by gender inequality and potential barriers to substance-abuse interventions.”
Blattner said black women do not get tested for three main reasons: the stigma attached to HIV and AIDS; the fear of telling their partners that they have contracted the virus; and many do not have insurance, which prevents them from obtaining top medical care to help them live with the disease, ala Magic Johnson.
Here are cities with the worst HIV rates for African American women:
— terry shropshire
