More than 30 years into the AIDS epidemic, a combination of safe-sex education and a new generation of pharmaceuticals has left many Americans convinced that HIV/AIDS is a problem that has been, if not solved, at least addressed. But that’s certainly not true in the American South, which accounts for nearly 50% of all new HIV infections in the United States.
The South has the highest rate of AIDS deaths of any U.S. region. It also has the largest numbers of adolescents and adults living with HIV and the fewest resources to fight the epidemic.
The disease there is concentrated largely in poor minority communities. Diagnoses tend to be late and often only after the infection has progressed to AIDS….