Trump just promised to end the HIV epidemic. This map shows the areas of the US that are home to the most people living with the disease.

Lydia Ramsey

Feb 6, 2019, 19:56 IST

Trump just promised to end the HIV epidemic. This map shows the areas of the US that are home to the most people living with the disease.

The infectious disease HIV/AIDS has been in the US since 1981.
An estimated 1.1 million Americans currently live with HIV in the US, however, and thousands still die from AIDS every year.
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump called for ending the HIV epidemic in the US by 2030 during the State of the Union address.
The Trump administration's plan is to focus resources to stop the transmission of HIV on key areas of the country where HIV is prevalent.
Here are some maps that show where HIV is most prevalent in the US made by AIDSVu, a project run by Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health in partnership with Gilead Sciences.

It's been 38 years since HIV/AIDS first showed up in the US.

The disease quickly spiraled into an epidemic, but medical advances have since made HIV controllable with medication - especially if diagnosed early.

An estimated 1.1 million people currently live with HIV in the US, however, and thousands still die from AIDS every year. About 40,000 people in the US get a new diagnosis of HIV each year.

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump called for ending the HIV epidemic in the US by 2030 during the State of the Union address.

The Trump administration plans to focus on 48 counties, Washington, D. C., San Juan, Puerto Rico, and seven states that have a high rural prevalence of HIV. The goal is to direct healthcare resources to those areas to prevent the spread of HIV and to treat individuals with the disease.

AIDSVu, a project run by Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health in partnership with biotech company Gilead Sciences, has been mapping HIV by county since 2010. Here's a look at where HIV is most prevalent in the US, and where the focus might be over the next 11 years as part of an effort to end the epidemic.

The maps show the prevalence of HIV as of 2015, as well as new diagnoses from 2008 to 2016. Here's what the researchers found.

AIDSVu gets its data from state and city health departments that collect information on a local level. This map looks at the number of new HIV diagnoses, with darker purple denoting more diagnoses in a given county.

By mapping HIV rates on a local level, public health officials can get insight into which groups might need more attention (based on geography or demographics).

The southern states of the US are disproportionately affected by HIV, accounting for 45% of all people living with HIV in the US as well as half of all new diagnoses as of 2016. For instance, in 2015, 615 of every 100,000 people living in Florida were living with HIV.

One age group is experiencing a disproportionate amount of new diagnoses in recent years: Those between the ages of 13 and 24. In 2015, new diagnoses in this age group accounted for a quarter of all new diagnoses. Here's what the number of cases of HIV looks like across the country for 13 to 24 year olds (though in some counties the data was not released).

In addition to providing a breakdown of HIV prevalence in the US, the project also maps out where testing centers are, as well as where people can get access to preventive treatments. The CDC recommends people between 13 and 64 get tested at least once.

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