| NC Now: HIV/AIDS Update
More than twenty years after AIDS was first diagnosed, the disease is taking a deadlier toll than ever. The United Nations says more than 40 million people worldwide live with HIV or AIDS, and the disease killed more than three million people just last year. State health experts say the AIDS crisis is not over in North Carolina either, as more than a thousand people become infected each year.
Fred Wiggins/HIV Positive: About nine years ago, I kept on going to the hospital week after week coming down with these flu like symptoms, and I really didn't know what it was.
What doctors discovered devastated Fred Wiggins. He had AIDS.
Fred Wiggins: I asked to be left alone for a moment, and of course a tear or two came out, and then I picked myself up and said I slept in this bed, I made it, you know, this is some of the consequences.
He is not alone in his fight against AIDS. According to the state Department Of Health And Human Services, the number of new cases of HIV and AIDS has risen 13-percent since 2001. That year, 1,594 people were diagnosed in North Carolina. By 2005, there were 1,806 new cases. There was a spike in 2003, when the number jumped to 2,100, but epidemiologists say that was because of increased surveillance efforts, not more people contracting HIV.
Dr. Del Williams, Manager of Epidemiology and Special Studies for the HIV/STD Prevention and Care Branch, has tracked the AIDS epidemic for more than a decade. He says it's hitting the African American community especially hard.
Dr. Del Williams: Minorities make up approximately 25% of the state's population, but the proportion of new HIV/AIDS reports we see, we see around 75% of those reports from 25% of the population.
State statistics show the rate of infection for all African Americans is seven times greater than for whites. For African American women, the rate is 12 times higher than for white women. The question is why. Experts say there are many answers. Fred Wiggins says one is, some people with HIV simply don't care about protecting other people.
Fred Wiggins: People tend to get diagnosed and they become really angry, to the point that rather than going out and telling someone about their illness, a mate possibly, telling their mate about it, they'd rather load that shotgun up and say okay, come on, let's have it, and the next thing you know this person has it and the cycle goes on and on and on.
Dr. Del Williams: We have some areas where we have identified very tight what we call sexual networks, which are fairly easily defined as a group of people who know each other. Many of these sexual networks seem to be associated with the use of crack cocaine. And one of the things that does tend to occur is that when we seen individuals who are using substances that lower inhibitions, interesting things start to happen.
Dr. Williams says there's also an issue of economics. He says poor people usually don't have access to high quality health care.
Dr. Del Williams: And the unfortunate reality in North Carolina is that our African American community does have overall, at least on average, a lower earning capacity than the white population or the majority population.
Milford Evans agrees, when it comes to preventing HIV and AIDS, money matters. He has worked as a benefits advocate to help people living with HIV and AIDS and says more than 90% of those he's helped have fallen below the poverty level.
Milford Evans/Benefits Advocate: A lot of it has to do with being able to take care of yourself. It was a lack of resources for a balanced diet, a good diet, or decent living conditions, things of that nature. I've found that is a very big contributing factor as far as infections and spreading.
Evans says intravenous drug use is also still a significant risk factor. So is the idea that effective medications have changed HIV from a death sentence into a manageable illness.
Milford Evans: I think a lot of people in the 25 year old bracket, they think that you can get it, you're not going to die, it's manageable, but they don't understand the regimen you have to go through. They don't have a clue.
Fred Wiggins: These are my daily meds that I take for the cocktail or the virus.
For Fred Wiggins, the regimen is three medicines twice a day to keep his immune system functioning and to keep him alive. He says he, too, thought it couldn't happen to him.
Fred Wiggins: I always thought I wouldn't catch it because, like I said, I was the cleanest person in the world in terms of my needles and whathaveyou.. and most of my sex partners. It's just, you get lazy. You get lackadaisical. You're so caught up in the moment that you forget to take those precautions. And this is what happens. This is the end result.
AIDS experts say increased education and awareness are critical in stopping the spread of the disease, but they admit they're having a hard time getting that message out to some groups of people who are at risk. Prevention coordinator Donnie Williamson says it's particularly hard to reach black men who secretly have sex with other men, also the poor, and some homosexuals who think HIV is treatable, not fatal.
Donnie Williamson/Prevention Coordinator: I think sometimes there's still the attitude of it's not my problem. They get the understanding of everyone should use a condom, but then they have this attitude of it's not our problem.
Williamson says AIDS is everyone's problem, and it's not going away.
Donnie Williamson: We're having more and more people coming in needing help every day. If anything it may be shifting some of the populations that it's affecting because certain populations are learning and some are not, but it's still, it's still as big a problem as it ever was.
Milford Evans: I had a client who brought in her two-year-old daughter. I was going to do an intake on her. When you sit there and you see a two-year-old that's diagnosed with HIV, I think that should tell you this thing's going to be with us for a long time, until a cure is. So if they think the crisis is over, I've got a two-year-old who's got the rest of her life for you to try to convince. |
