The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a report on Thursday that found that 4 in 10 transgender women in seven major US cities have HIV, which the agency said is needed to focus on HIV prevention and treatment among the population.
The study conducted in 2019 and early 2020 found that 42% of 1,608 transgender women in Atlanta, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Seattle, with a valid test result, had HIV.
The report, which the CDC labeled one of the most comprehensive surveys of transgender women in the United States, found that 62% of black transgender women and 35% of Hispanic or Latino transgender women had HIV. Meanwhile, 17% of white transgender women have this disease.
Almost two-thirds of respondents reported living at or below the poverty line, and 17% had no health insurance. Over 4 out of 10 have suffered homelessness in the last year and 17% have been in prison.
The research was launched a few days before the National Transgender HIV Testing Day on Sunday.
Demetre Daskalakis, director of the CDC’s HIV / AIDS Prevention Division, said in a statement that reducing the number of transgender women with HIV in these cities will require “innovative and comprehensive, status-neutral solutions,” involving a commitment continuous.
These data provide a clear and compelling picture of the severe number of HIV women among transgender women and the social and economic factors – including systemic racism and transphobia – that contribute to this unacceptable burden, Daskalakis said.
The study found that 32 percent of HIV-free respondents used pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), a treatment for those at risk for HIV infection through sex or injecting drug use. A total of 34% of participants stated that they were involved in sex work.
The CDC cited previous studies that concluded that many transgender women may not use PrEP for a variety of reasons, including medical distrust, lack of transgender marketing, and concerns about how they will interact with hormones. Sixty-seven percent of transgender women in the CDC survey reported taking hormones to claim gender.