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HIV targeting minorities according to atlas

Updated: 2009-07-01 01:10:23 CST Category: HIV

by Laurent Castellucci

The HIV/AIDS Atlas, a project to present county-level infection rates all across the U.S., has shown that 80 percent of HIV cases are clustered in just 20 percent of the counties in the nation. Those counties are mostly comprised of gay, black, Latino and other minority populations.

"If we think of the AIDS pandemic as a global wildfire, the way that you fight wildfires is to identify the hot spots," said Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation to HealthDay. "We know that you can't fight the disease if you don't know who has it. And we know that in every disease early detection is the key."

The atlas remains a work in progress, currently only 29 states gave data all the way down to the county level, but it is already enough to determine some of the hotspots. The Southeast and Northeast both have high concentrations of the disease, according to CNN's interpretation of the data.

A recent study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed that 48 percent of HIV-positive adolescents and young adults are unaware they are infected. The CDC strongly encourages all adults who may be at risk to get an HIV test.

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