WASHINGTON (March 16) -- A new report by Washington, D.C., health officials says that at least 3 percent of residents in the nation's capital are living with HIV or AIDS and every mode of transmission is on the rise.
"Our rates are higher than West Africa," Shannon L. Hader, director of the District's HIV/AIDS Administration, told The Washington Post for a story that appeared in Sunday's editions. "They're on par with Uganda and some parts of Kenya."
Check out the gallery below on the nation's five most AIDS-ridden metropolitan areas. Why doesn't Washington lead the list? Though the infection rate in the city limits is the nation's highest, the rates in the surrounding suburbs pull it down slightly.

The findings in the 2008 epidemiology report by the D.C. HIV/AIDS Administration point to a severe epidemic that's affecting every race and sex across the population and neighborhoods.
The 3 percent figure means about 15,120 people in the District have HIV or AIDS and is well over the 1 percent threshold for a general epidemic, the Post reported. The newspaper noted that the numbers are close to the 4 percent infection rate recorded in San Francisco at the peak if its epidemic, in 1992.

Scheduled to be released Monday, the report says that the number of HIV and AIDS cases jumped 22 percent from the nearly 12,500 reported in 2006. Almost 1 in 10 residents between ages 40 and 49 are living with HIV, and black men had the highest infection rate at almost 7 percent.
The report says that the virus is most often transmitted by men having sex with men, followed by heterosexual transmission and injection drug use.

Top 5 metro cities with the highest rates:

Miami - 33.1 per 100,000 residents
New Orleans - 31.5 per 100,000 residents
Baton Rouge - 31.4 per 100,000 residents
Washington, DC - 30.5 per 100,000 residents
Baltimore - 29.6 per 100,000 residents
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Wow. These numbers are a real tragedy. We have fallen so far back because of the warped idea from many that "oh HIV isn't like it was in the 80s (aka a death sentence) so if I get it I can just take some meds and be ok" What the f*ck? I talk to young kids who are so sexually irresponsible and don't even ask about a guy's status before engaging in sex. I mean granted even if the person does know they could lie about it, but still....ASK!!! Its some scary stuff. It took me a couple years before I agreed to have unprotected sex with my boyfriend, but at the end of the day I don't know 100% sure what that papi is doing. I trust him and take him at his word that he has never cheated on me, but who else has been told that only to discover later that their partner/boyfriend wasn't shit and was screwing everything with a pulse.? I am not one for fairytales but one for reality. I already told him that if he steps out on me, he better wrap it up. Its really scary. I recently met this 20 year old (fine ass black/italian brotha....UGH!! If I was single!!) and he has HIV and has been sick most of the time I've known him. I don't know where his status lies (in terms of HIV or what they term full blown AIDS based on T-cell count) but my god I couldn't imagine. Black men...get it together because those rates are appalling!!!

Those are just reported cases, right? Imagine what the actual numbers are of people who don't even know they're infected. I'm 19 now and I honestly have always been scared of STDs/STIs. To the point that if my current relationship doesn't work out despite it being so long now, I just may become celibate in every possible way I can. The thought of contracting even an infection annoys me to a high degree. Laugh all you want, but I'm young and so are most of the guys here. I consider anything 65 and under to be young, if you die at 55, you died young in my book.

Young people everywhere are woefully uneducated about HIV/AIDS. Last year I was on the subway and overhead a bunch of teens talkig about how fortunate they were to belong to the first generation that didn't have to worry about AIDS because......its now curable. I had to interject and tell them how wrong they were. The just shook their heads and looked at me like I was an idiot. I talked to a friend who works in an AIDS clinic and he placed part of the blame on posters and magazine ads for AIDS meds showing healthy looking people doing fun things and enjoying life like it was no big deal and no mention of side effects.

LOL, those posters are just a false sense of security. They just show how you can live a subnormal life before the virus gets too advanced.

Great. Another thing I have to worry about moving to DC.

GRR.

Not if you aren't one of the dumbasses who don't take the proper precautions in case their sex partners are clueless or liars about their HIV status.

OH, I take precautions. It's my goal to make sure I am still around to bug my ex-bfs FOREVER AND EVER.

I try to quote the 3% number as often as I can, that and the 46% number in a five U.S. city study of young black men. These numbers are out the roof. All the talk about AIDS in Africa, or pediatric AIDS is so frustrating when it takes the focus off our own domestic crisis.