Southern HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, taking place today, August 20, provides an opportunity to closely look at this situation.The U.S.
South is the epicenter of the national HIV/AIDS epidemic. More than half of U.S. HIV deaths occur here and survival rates are the lowest.
In some Southern states, people living with HIV are three times as likely to die as elsewhere. The reasons behind this are complicated, but also similar to those we see with COVID-19.
In fact, communities that have 13 percent or greater population of Black Americans, which are largely in the U.S. South, have an intense distribution of both COVID-19 and HIV.