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March 20, 2009
DC HIV Report Alarms South Carolina Health Officials
After an epidemiology report from Washington, DC, showed that at least 3 percent of people in the nation’s capital are HIV positive, South Carolina health officials are concerned that they, too, could be in trouble, The Post and Courier reports.
South Carolina ranks seventh among states and the District of Columbia in the percentage of residents living with AIDS, according to the state Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC). This means 16 of every 100,000 South Carolinians are HIV positive.
However, according to the Post article, the percentage of blacks in South Carolina living with HIV has dropped consistently during the past 10 years. “We’ve made a lot of progress, but we can’t be complacent,” said Tony Price, DHEC’s HIV prevention program manager.
According to DHEC, sex among men, particularly black men, is the biggest cause of infection. In South Carolina, men who have sex with men account for 50 percent of recent infections, followed by HIV-positive men who have sex with women and then intravenous drug users.
“It could become more of a problem here if people don’t start to pay attention to what they do,” said Lowcountry AIDS Services director Virginia King.
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