State Official Dispute HIV Map Results ATLANTA, GA (WABE) - State health officials dispute a map that was released this week, which shows that more than half of the most HIV/AIDS-prevalent counties in the U.S. are in Georgia many of them rural. The map was created by the National Minority Quality Forum, a Washington-based nonprofit research group.

WABE's Odette Yousef reports.

Raphael Holloway, director of the HIV Unit at the Georgia Division of Public Health, says the report compared apples to oranges. He says that Georgia provided county-level data, while many other states didn't, and that's why the state is overrepresented on the list.

Also,

HOLLOWAY: In some of our rural counties that have prisons, you will see additional HIV being counted toward prevalence, whereas it's not the actual people living in the county but it's people living within the correctional system.

Holloway doesn't deny that HIV and AIDS are big problems in rural Georgia, where people often aren't tested or are tested late, and access to care and education are difficult.

Georgia ranks 8th nationally for AIDS cases. Rural counties account for 36% of the state's disease burden.

Odette Yousef, WABE News.
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