HIV Infections Increasing In Rural Georgia

HIV is no longer a 'big city' problem, according to a Georgia Health official.

In rural Georgia, the number of cases is spiking, said Donald Slakie, public health educator and AIDS expert with the Georgia Health Department. “The rural areas are being much more severely affected with HIV than ever before,” Slakie said. He blames the fact on both resources and treatment not being readily available and on the greater difficulty in reaching people through prevention efforts.

The epidemic is shifting to smaller cities, towns and farms. A third or more of new cases that are men are outside Atlanta’s 20-county metropolitan area. Almost half the women and children are in rural areas, according to governmental statistics. Georgia ranks seventh in the nation for AIDS cases — and more than half the cases reported as recently as 2004 have died.

One group is being hit harder than all others. “We know that more African-Americans are being infected than any other ethnic group in the United States at this time,” Slakie said. “ … Particularly between the ages of 18 and 44.” Of the 6,348 AIDS cases reported in rural Georgia from 1981 to 1999, more than two-thirds — 70 percent — are among minorities. Of all cases in the state, 83 percent are now black — more than three-fourths — up from just over half in 1996. Persons 30 to 39 years old have the largest number of cases.

The reasons for such high numbers in this area are many, according Raphael Holloway from the Georgia Department of Human Resources. “I think it’s different for different people,” he said. “An inability to prioritize, their sex behaviors that put them at risk; it may be housing, it may be income, it could be other pressing health issues.”

More teenagers are becoming infected, according to government statistics. Teens, the prevention plan states, are less likely to perceive themselves at risk and more likely to take chances with unprotected sex. Many of the 19 percent of Georgians who were diagnosed in their 20s were likely infected as teens. In Georgia’s North Health District, 490 cases of HIV/AIDS have been diagnosed since 1981 and 143 have died. Since 2004, 104 cases have been diagnosed and nine have died. Courtesy IndependantMail.com