2005 New Cases: 1,806*

Black: 63%
White: 28%
Latino: 7%

Children
College Students
Women

Adolfo Aguilar
Outreach Worker, Chatham Social Health Council
Coleen Cunningham
Chief of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Duke University Medical Center
Milford Evans
Benefits Advocate
Gerrod Henderson
HIV Positive teenager
Peter Leone, M.D
Medical Director, HIV/STD Prevention & Care Branch
Jonathan Perry
HIV Positive
Fred Wiggins
HIV Positive
Del Williams, Ph.D
Manager, Epidemiology & Special Studies HIV/STD Prevention & Care Branch

HIV/AIDS on Campus
HIV/AIDS & Kids
HIV/AIDS & Latinos
HIV/AIDS & Women

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*NC Department of Health and Human Services

"I kept on going to the hospital week after week coming down with these flu like symptoms, and I really didn't know what it was," remembers Fred Wiggins.

That was more than ten years ago. Wiggins, a Franklin County native, had moved west for the bright lights of L.A., where he says he lived the stereotypical Hollywood lifestyle, filled with sex and drugs. But when he came back home, doctors gave him devastating news. He had AIDS.

"I asked to be left alone for a moment, and of course a tear or two came out, and then I picked myself up and said I slept in this bed; I made it, you know. This is some of the consequences."

Fred Wiggins is just one example of how the HIV/AIDS epidemic has changed dramatically in North Carolina. Doctors say HIV/AIDS affects every segment of the population in ever-increasing numbers. According to the state Department of Health and Human Services, the number of new HIV and AIDS cases has risen about 13% since 2001. That year, 1,594 people were diagnosed in North Carolina. By 2005, there were 1,806 new cases. There was a spike in 2003, when the number jumped to 2,100, but epidemiologists say that was because of increased surveillance efforts, not more people contracting HIV.

In this new age of HIV/AIDS, African-Americans account for a majority of new infections. In 2005, 63% of those diagnosed were black, 28% were white, and seven percent were Latino. Men represented 72% of new cases; women, 28%. Most contracted HIV through sexual activity. Among men, 69% said having sex with other men put them at risk. Another 23% believe they got HIV from sex with women. Just eight percent say they contracted HIV through injecting drugs. Among women, 83% got HIV from heterosexual sex, and injecting drugs accounted for about 12% of new cases.