Comparison
When the cumulative AIDS rate for the eight wards in Washington D.C. was compared to the national cumulative rate, it was remarkable. Not only was the cumulative rate higher than the national average, it was at least two times higher and sometimes ten times higher. Yet this does not suggest that AIDS is only a problem in cities, AIDS is a problem all over the nation. All eight wards have cumulative rates that are two times or more the national rate starting at 647 [Table 2] compared to the nations rate at 328[Table 1] .
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now estimate that more than one million Americans are living with HIV. Up to one-third of them do not know they are HIV-positive. It's estimated that one in every 20 adults in the District of Columbia is infected with HIV. DC has a higher rate of HIV infection than most sub-Saharan African nations. DC has the highest rate of new AIDS cases per 100,000 people in the United States -- a rate that is 12 times the national average. In DC, the greatest increase in AIDS cases is occurring among people of color, women, injection drug users, and through heterosexual contact. In DC, African-Americans account for eight out of every 10 cases of AIDS. More than 15,000 people in the Washington metropolitan area live with AIDS. Tens of thousands more people are estimated to be infected with HIV.
From researching the cumulative AIDS rates from Washington and the U.S. I realized how different each ward is. From looking at the data [Table 2] one can see that wards 1 and 2 have a serious problem. Each ward has a rate of over 3,000 people with AIDS per 100,000 people. Yet, ward 3 only has an AIDS rate of 647 yet is still double the nations AIDS rate. My first impression after seeing these numbers was that in wards 1 and 2, there were a lot of black poor neighborhoods and in ward 3 it was a wealthier predominantly white neighborhood. Well, I guessed right. The numbers were not low in some areas because they had drastically different populations; it was the environment which each ward had. In ward 3 there were only 60 women living with AIDS compared to ward 8 where there were 830. This is a huge problem because one can see the division of not only social class but race as well.
In Washington D.C. the most common transmission mode is found to be from MSM and IDU [Tables 6 & 7]. In males, 54% have received AIDS from MSM and 34.1% of female cases resulted from IDU. Even though IDU is a clearly a serious problem, Washington refuses to face it. Recently, the Washington Post sent out an Editorial on page A19 which headlined, “Needle Exchange Needs Beyond D.C.” [2]. This article spoke of how the U.S. just spent $34 million dollars on HIV-AIDS in Vietnam last year, but will not fund the District’s needle exchange program to grant people access to clean needles.