HIV/AIDS: South struggles against rising problem -- chicagotribune.com

"Not enough funding, doctors, education to fight growing problem

Sheila Holt moved to this small town from New Jersey two years ago to take care of her ailing mother. But as a former heroin addict with HIV, she found that rebuilding her life in the South was harder than she had imagined.

She was shocked that the wealth of services, such as housing, transportation and medications, available to her as an HIV patient in Newark were lacking in Henderson. In the North, she said, people talked openly about the disease without fear of reprisal. In the South, she could not sit at the dinner table with her family or talk to her neighbors about the disease without the risk of being shunned."