Number of HIV/AIDS Deaths on the Rise
The Arizona Dept. of Health Services recently reported on Dec. 13, 2023, that new HIV/AIDS cases in Arizona skyrocketed by 20% in 2022.
The report - the HIV Surveillance 2023 Report - said there were 975 new Arizona cases of HIV/AIDS during 2022. That was 20% over the prior year when there were just 852 new cases.
Moreover, the incidence rate in 2022 was 13.2 cases of HIV/AIDS per 100,000 residents in Arizona. That is a rise of 15.8% over the 11.4 incidences or cases per 100,000 residents in 2021.
Men have the majority of cases. There are now 22.8 cases of HIV/AIDS per 100,000 for males compared to just 3.7 per 100,000 for women in Arizona.
Ethnicity and Death Rates
Here is what the report's Executive Summary said about ethnicity:
"For race/ethnicity, 292 (30%) incident cases identified as white and 405 (42%) identified as Hispanic."
"While fewer newly diagnosed individuals identified as black, the incidence rate of HIV/AIDS in black individuals was the highest at 42.3 per 100,000."
However, the outcome of the disease has improved.
For persons living with HIV/AIDS (i.e., PLWH), the death rate in Arizona in 2022 decreased. There were 326 PLWH-related deaths in 2022.
The chart above shows that in the past 10 years, the number of PLWH deaths has been rising dramatically.
The Report gave no indication why the number of deaths has been increasing, nor whether the incidence rates that have been rising in Arizona will continue this trend in 2023 and 2024.
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Mark R. Hake, CFA, writes articles on national and local news, stocks, and market events at Kiplinger.com, Barchart.com, Medium.com, and Newsbreak.com as well as TalkMarkets.
He is also the Chief Strategy Officer for AnaChart, a new sell-side stock analyst tracking service.