The geographic spread of HIV and Trump’s plan

When looking over the NIH online exhibition, I was shocked at the HIV transmission rate in Washington, D.C. and so I looked up the current geographic distribution. Young people in D.C. are being diagnosed at twice the national rate. Of these newly diagnosed, 8 out of 10 are black and 2 out of 3 are MSM. In 2016, more than half of new cases were in several southern states where less than 38% of the population resides. It seems that, while in some areas HIV infections are decreasing, they are becoming increasingly concentrated in low-income communities and communities of color.

I also stumbled across Trump’s plan to tackle the epidemic. I was unaware of this plan which was announced early in the year. However, Maria de Jesus, Associate Professor at American University, wrote an interesting piece on how drugs alone cannot end the epidemic without addressing poverty.