ATLANTA — Metro Atlanta has the third-highest ranking for HIV diagnoses in the country, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
11Alive checked with a local clinic that mostly serves DeKalb, Fulton and Clayton Counties to find out what it's seeing right now.
"I have noticed that this quarter for 2024, we've already reported more positive individuals living with HIV than we did the quarter in 2023," Director of HIV Preventions with Aids Atlanta, Dewayne Ford, said.
She was surprised by the CDC's data.
"We're all trying to figure out, you know, why are we getting more people that are diagnosed with HIV when we know there are more prevention tools out there," Ford said.
If you expand the data from Atlanta to the entire state, current preliminary data shows Georgia is fourth in the country for HIV diagnoses. Concerned residents started sharing this information on social media, expressing their fear and hesitancy about the data.
"There's fear. And that's with anything that's unknown," Ford said.
Ford said there are still a lot of people who don't understand HIV treatment.
"We know that HIV does have a stigma that a lot of comorbidities do not," Ford said. "And so, I think that it's what kind of propels people to maybe not want to know the status or maybe not tell their partners."
CDC data also shows infections were 12% lower in 2021 than in 2017, but some pandemic restrictions were still in place, which could have contributed to that data.
Ford reminds people that this disease is not a death sentence.
"We're just trying to make sure that the message continues to be the same as it always has been, and that prevention methods are out there," Ford said.
Ford suggests talking with your healthcare providers about a preventive medication known as PrEP.
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