05.21.12 In the city with the nation’s highest rate of new HIV cases, the downtown Baton Rouge commemoration Sunday evening of International AIDS Memorial Day took on a special sense of urgency.

“We’re not adequately addressing the epidemic here,” Jack Carrel, administrator for the Baton Rouge Ryan White Program, told the crowd of about 150 people gathered next to the State Capitol.

Unlike other areas of the country, Baton Rouge’s black population is disproportionately affected by the disease, Carrel said.

Of the 5,000 Baton Rouge residents living with the virus, 76 percent are black, Carrel said. Black people represent 91 percent of new diagnoses in Baton Rouge, he said.