Health officials from the Centers for Di/sease Control and Prevention announced on Thursday that Atlanta remains in an H I V/A I D S health crisis and ranks fourth in the nation for new H I V diagnoses, WSBTV reports. In fact, the H I V/A I D S ep/idemic was so rampant, that in 2016 it was likened to a third world country.
“Downtown Atlanta is as bad as Zimbabwe or Harare or Durban [All in Africa],” Dr. Carlos del Rio, the co-director for the Emory Center for A I D S research, said in 2016. At issue is the limited funding and that is part of what causes the epi/demic continues to spread. Thankfully Atlanta has superstar activists like Daniel Driffin who recently launched The Spot, a free, LGBTQ-friendly H I V testing site that will provide LGBTQ healthcare referrals and se/xual health information. “The SPOT was created to be a new solution of quality care for LGBTQIA folks who are not always comfortable at our traditional service providing agencies,” said Daniel Driffin, H I V activist and co-founder of Thrive SS.