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Looks like information about Karlie Redd‘s past isn’t the only thing spreading around Atlanta. The Center For Disease Control says that the A-town has an HIV epidemic comparable to that of third-world African countries.

Recent CDC studies have revealed that one in 51 Georgians will be diagnosed with HIV in their lifetime. In 2014 Georgia’s population was just over 10 million people. In 2013, Atlanta‘s metro population was 5.6 million. So, simple division will tell you that HIV is multiplying very fast.

Atlanta’s WSB Channel 2 news reports, “Downtown Atlanta is as bad as Zimbabwe or Harare or Durban,” via a statement from Dr. Carlos del Rio, co-director of Emory University’s Center for AIDS Research. In 2014 it was reported that Atlanta had the fifth highest rate of new HIV infections.

Other data in the study suggests that the Southern region of the United States as a whole presents the highest risk of contracting HIV. Men who have sex with men had a 1 in 6 risk of getting the disease while heterosexual men possessed a 1 in 473 risk.

Gay Black men in particular had a higher risk than their counterparts in other ethnicities. Black men who have sex with men had a 1 in 2 risk, Hispanic men a 1 in 4 risk and white men a 1 in 11 risk.

WXIA Channel 11 new in Atlanta also adds that increased heroin use in the suburban Atlanta could compound the problem and make HIV spread even more than it already has and is expected to.

Photo: HHW