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Number of HIV and AIDS cases in Maryland
sets record—again
BY STEPHEN E. MATHER
Capital News Service
The number of people living
with HIV and AIDS in Maryland reached 26,231 last year, the
latest in a line of steady increases since the state began
reporting HIV infections in 1994. The 2002 level represented
an increase of 1,803 cases over 2001, and a new high for the
state, the Maryland AIDS Administration reported.
One reason for the increase is that "people with the
disease are living much longer" because of new medications,
said Colin Flynn, chief of epidemiology at the administration.
But he warned that complacency is dangerous.
"We have treatments...but people are still getting sick
and dying," Flynn said.
Maryland’s AIDS rate was still third-highest in the
nation in 2002, at 34 reported cases for every 100,000 in
population. Maryland trails only Washington, D.C. and New
York state in its infection rate, according to the U.S. Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention.
About half of the state’s HIV and AIDS cases were reported
in Baltimore City and about 15 percent were in Prince George’s
County, the administration report said. Montgomery County
had the third-highest number of cases in the state.
African-Americans accounted for nearly 82 percent of the
state’s cases in 2002, and men made up about 65 percent
of the total, the report said.
But while half of all new HIV cases nationwide were among
people under the age of 25, only about 20 percent of the new
cases in Maryland were diagnosed in people who were 29 years
old or younger.
About half of the new HIV cases reported in Maryland during
2002 resulted from heterosexual contact, according to the
AIDS Administration. More than a third of the newly reported
HIV patients in Maryland were intravenous drug users and about
15 percent of the new cases were gay men.
Michael Cover, a spokesman for the Whitman-Walker Clinic,
said experimentation with alcohol and drugs "fuels the
epidemic," causing some young adults who are just becoming
sexually active to make decisions that put them at risk of
contracting HIV.
Cover, 41, a gay man who is HIV-positive, said he watched
"dozens and dozens" of his friends die of AIDS in
Washington during the 1980s. He said medical improvements
have spared many younger gay men from similar experiences–but
may also have blinded them to the danger.
"The medications make the disease a little more invisible,"
Cover said. "They don’t get a true picture about
the danger this poses."
Cover said his clinic, which serves patients the Washington
metropolitan area, has seen at least 2,000 new patients since
1999–many of them without insurance. To effectively fight
the epidemic, society must have "frank, honest, direct"
conversations about sex and encourage young people to be abstinent
or use condoms, Cover said.
Nationally, the largest group affected by AIDS is still homosexual
men, according to the CDC.
In December, politicians and AIDS groups marked World AIDS
Day to call attention to the estimated 40 million people worldwide
infected with HIV.
Cover said that while he is grateful for the spotlight the
day brings, the epidemic is with us "all day long, every
day of the year."
"We need a renewed national commitment to end this epidemic
by any means necessary," Cover said. "We need a
war on HIV."
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