HIV/AIDS Support

Dallas County retains state's worst HIV rate

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/local-news/20100420-Dallas-County-retains-state-s-worst-4062.ece

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Zachary Thompson, executive director of Dallas County Health and Human Services, said the county and other AIDS service groups in Dallas have worked to lower the HIV rate for years.

"It's why we wanted to begin distributing condoms in Dallas County," he said. "We said right upfront that we were seeing increasing numbers of HIV/AIDS."

In 2008, Dallas County commissioners rescinded a 13-year ban on condom distribution, acknowledging the need to prevent not only the spread of the human immunodeficiency virus but other sexually transmitted diseases as well.

The county acknowledged its HIV rate on the same day the Texas Department of State Health Services released its 2008 annual report on HIV/AIDS. It showed a steady increase in the number of Texans now living with the disease.

Since 2002, the number of HIV/AIDS survivors in Texas has gone up about 6 percent annually