D.C. continues to have alarming numbers of HIV/AIDS cases, but new cases of HIV in D.C. have declined by 41 percent since 2002, a study released on Monday found.
Six years ago, there were 687 new cases. In 2006, they were 403 new cases. Each year since 2002, the number has declined.
Shannon Hader, senior deputy director of the city’s HIV/AIDS Administration since October, didn’t offer reasons for the peak in 2002.
“We have to focus on the solutions for now,” Hader said. “The root cause 10 years ago is not the root cause today.”
The report cited D.C. as having the highest number of new cases in a major U.S. city. D.C.’s new case figures are higher than Baltimore, New York, Philadelphia and Chicago.
In 2006, about 12,500 city residents were known to have HIV or AIDS, and D.C. children accounted for 9 percent of all U.S. pediatric cases, mainly from mother-to-child transmission, the statistics showed, even though medical treatment can prevent such transmissions.
The study, “District of Columbia HIV/AIDS Epidemiology Annual Report 2007,” was organized by the D.C. HIV/AIDS Administration in coordination with George Washington University.
The report found heterosexual contact to be the leading mode of transmission in the city, at 37 percent of the newly reported infections. Nationally, homosexual contact leads in spreading the disease.
Blacks, who account for 57 percent of the city’s population, make up 81 percent of all new HIV cases. Black women make up 58 percent of the District’s female population but account for 90 percent of the new female HIV cases. Black men make up 52 percent of new HIV cases, the report stated.
Mayor Adrian Fenty put forth an action plan to counter the number of new cases. By 2009, he said he wants all hospital emergency rooms to offer testing; he wants to eliminate mother-to-child transmission and use $3.5 million in federal grants to target blacks in the District.
