KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A new internet map targets three metro counties as having HIV/AIDS rates worst than about 80 percent of counties nationwide.
“While the map tells a national story, the impact of HIV/AIDS in Kansas City area is surprising,” says Danny O’Farrell with MapHIV.org. “Jackson County had a higher AIDS prevalence rate than 81.6 percent of counties in the nation.”
O’Farrell says Jackson County numbers were even worse when it came to HIV with “a higher HIV prevalence rate than 92.5 percent of counties in the nation.”
Wyandotte and Leavenworth Counties also fell in the ranking of AIDS rates higher than 81.6 percent of counties nationwide.
That translates to about two cases of AIDS per 1,000 county residents.
The numbers come from the HIV/AIDS Atlas at
http://www.maphiv.org, which compares counties nationwide.
The Web site was inoperable for a time Monday as it was swamped with users.
“I haven’t gotten it to work for me yet,” Kansas City Health Department spokesman Jeff Hershberger said. “The information doesn’t really surprise us.”
“It does point out this is something we need to stay on top of to make sure we don’t go back to the 80’s when it was spreading even more rampantly.”
The National Minority Quality Forum launched the online HIV/AIDS Atlas at a news conference in Washington this morning.
“The Atlas will, for the first time, give the general public access to information previously only available to federal government and health officials,” O’Farrell says.
