A deadly disease is rampant in Metro Atlanta, and scientists are calling it an epidemic.
Channel 2's Dave Huddleston spoke with researchers and doctors who said Atlanta is the epicenter of that epidemic, comparing some neighborhoods to developing African countries.
J.R. Watson is a towering man, and the only hair on his head is a handle-bar mustache.
Just by looking at him, you'd never know he has AIDS. He recalled the moment he found out he was positive 20 years ago.
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Atlanta is dealing with a real HIV epidemic, and it's so bad that it's being compared to third world countries.
Just a few months ago, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that 1 in 51 Georgians will be diagnosed with HIV in their lifetime.
Startled by that statistic, WSB-TV reporter Dave Huddleston decided to dig deeper. "That to me seems like two classrooms...one child out of two classes will contract AIDS...now think about an entire school," Huddleston said. "That kind of helped me understand how alarming these stats are."
In his reporting, Huddleston found that doctors are comparing the HIV rate in Atlanta to some of the poorest and most vulnerable countries in the world.
"Downtown Atlanta is as bad as Zimbabwe or Harare or Durban," said Dr. Carlos del Rio, co-director of Emory University's Center for AIDS Research. "We should not be having an epidemic of that proportion in a country like ours."Huddleston adds, "Atlanta is one of the worst places in the entire country...it was shocking."
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Other data in the study suggests that the Southern region of the United States as a whole presents the highest risk of contracting HIV. Men who have sex with men had a 1 in 6 risk of getting the disease while heterosexual men possessed a 1 in 473 risk.
Gay Black men in particular had a higher risk than their counterparts in other ethnicities. Black men who have sex with men had a 1 in 2 risk, Hispanic men a 1 in 4 risk and white men a 1 in 11 risk.
Video:
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/2-investigates/atlantas-hiv-epidemic-compared-to-third-world-african-countries/263337845http://www.centrictv.com/news-views/centric-news/articles/2016/05/06/atlanta-hiv-epidemic-worst-than-third-world-african-countries.htmlhttp://hiphopwired.com/2016/05/06/cdc-says-atlanta-hiv-epidemic-bad-third-world-african-countries/Is it really that bad?
