Here's a grim statistic to chew on this World AIDS Day: Austin has the third highest percentage of people living with HIV in Texas. We used to fourth, behind Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio, respectively. But as of 2009, we've displaced San Antonio for the third spot.
Here are the HIV infection rates from 2009, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.
- Houston: 404.4 cases per 100,000 people (0.404 percent)
- Dallas: 364.6 cases per 100,000 people (0.365 percent)
- Austin: 265.6 cases per 100,000 people (0.266 percent)
- San Antonio: 244.6 cases per 100,000 people (0.245 percent)
- Fort Worth: 195.9 cases per 100,000 people (0.196 percent)
"I think there's been a sort of leveling off in the number of cases," City of Austin's HIV Resources Administration Unit manager Mark Peppler told KUT News. "We'll still probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 175 new diagnoses of HIV/AIDS per year."
"There's one population where we have seen slight increases, and that's among men who have sex with men, which in this work we refer to as MSM," he said. "That is a concern." He says it represents a shift from the 1990s when the HIV infection rate among MSM was declining.
Data provided by KUT by Pepplers suggests "one reason for this change may be the increase in risky sexual activities with anonymous or pseudonymous partners who meet over the Internet."
Listen to KUT's Crystal Chavez's interview with the people who run Doug's House, a local hospice for people in the final stages of AIDS releated illness.
http://media.kut.org/sounds/news_00023357/web120110.mp3
AIDS Services of Austin is offering free HIV testing from 1 pm until 7 pm tomorrow at 7215 Cameron Road. No appointments are necessary.
