Half of all new HIV cases are happening in the South, including Georgia. Facilities across the state are participating in National HIV Testing Day.

In Georgia more than 40,000 people live with HIV or AIDS. Eighteen-hundred of them, including Charles Klemm, live in Middle Georgia.

Klemm works at the Rainbow Center in Macon where he gives HIV tests and runs support groups. He says things have changed a lot since his diagnosis 24 years ago.

“The test was sent off, the results came back two weeks later when we found out. Now you can get tested, it’s an oral swab, you run in through the mouth. It takes 20 minutes. You’re sitting there the whole time and you get the results right away.”

The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta estimates around one million people in the United States are HIV positive. One in five people don’t know they are infected.

Tags: Georgia, Macon, HIV, AIDS, GPB, Josephine Bennett, HIV testing, Rainbow Center