LITTLE ROCK — It has been 31 years since the U.S. government began reporting the first AIDS cases.
Medicines have come a long way and the disease is not the death sentence it used to be. Cases of new infections have moved far beyond the community of white gay men the epidemic was first associated with.
New cases are hitting the South hard, most prevalently among black women. While awareness has increased, Idonia Trotter, executive director of the Arkansas Minority Health Commission, mourns the fact that education programs are limited.
HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), which causes AIDS, “is a lot like other viruses, including those that cause the ‘flu’ or the common cold,” but there is an important difference, explains the U.S Department of Health and Human Services aids.gov website.
“Over time, your immune system can clear most viruses out of your body. That isn’t the case with HIV - the human immune system can’t seem to get rid of it. Scientists are still trying to figure out why.” It is transmitted via sexual contact, injection drug use, pregnancy/childbirth/ breastfeeding, occupational exposure, and organ transplants/blood transfusions.
According to the Arkansas Department of Health, as of Dec. 31, 2011, there were 8,151 cases of HIV diagnosed in Arkansas. As of June 30, blacks had the highest prevalence rate (525.7 cases per 100,000 people), compared with Hispanics (132.8 per 100,000) and whites (122.1 per 100,000).
That’s why the Arkansas Minority Health Commission’s HIV/AIDS Prevention Coalition, partnered with the Department of Health, is going all out this year for World AIDS Day.
“World AIDS Day was designed and developed in order to make sure that we are focusing in on the need to ... create more awareness of this 100 percent preventable disease,” Trotter says. HIV/AIDS “[affects] young, old, black, white, high-class, low-class - whatever you want to call it.”
Established in 1988 by the World Health Organization, World AIDS Day, with its theme Getting to Zero, is observed every year on Dec. 1 as a way to provide individuals, governments, national AIDS programs and faith and community organizations with an understanding of the global problem.
LEARNING CURVE
The commission is ushering in the day with a screening of the award-winning documentary deepsouth, 6 p.m. Thursday at the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, 501 W. Ninth St. The production, according to press materials, “explores the lives of four Americans from Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama as they try to redefine Southern traditions and values and create solutions to survive the new, soaring HIV rates in the South.” This film won this year’s documentary feature award at the Sidewalk Film Festival in Birmingham, Ala., and the best domestic documentary and audience favorite awards at the Outflix Film Festival in Memphis.
Immediately following will be a panel discussion and question-and-answer session, moderated by state Sen. Linda Chesterfield. The panel will include Lisa Biagiotti, independent filmmaker/director and producer of deepsouth; Kathie Hiers of the Southern AIDS Coalition and AIDS Alabama; Dr. Naveen Patil, medical director HIV/STD/ Hepatitis C Section, Arkansas Department of Health; Bob Coffey, native Arkansan and HIV/AIDS prevention advocate; and Cornelius Mabin Jr., chief operating officer of The Living Affected Corp. in Little Rock and co-chairman of the Arkansas Community Planning Group. For more information about the screening or to RSVP, visit amhcdeepsouth.com or call the Design Group at (501) 492-4900.
BLACKS AND WOMEN
As World AIDS Day approaches, Mabin and his organization hope to show the disease’s impact on the lives of blacks and women.
In February 2011, The Living Affected Corp.’s Plus Club released Our Lives Our Story: The Untold Stories of Women With AIDS.
The book came about, Mabin says, because “there was such an emphasis on men, especially white men. We continued to see where there were lots of women of color, especially black women, affected by this - and there was not much emphasis on this.”
(According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, black women in 2009 accounted for 30 percent of the estimated new HIV infections among all blacks, and 85 percent of those acquired it through heterosexual sex. The estimated rate of new HIV infections for black women was more than 15 times as high as the rate for white women.)
Our Lives Our Story was the brainchild of former Living Affected Chief Executive Officer Deidra Levi, who saw the numbers and approached pharmaceutical companies with the idea of producing the book.
Mabin says, “It took some time, it took quite a bit of time, to find individuals” to be featured in the book. “We interviewed and we begged,” but women did not want to come forward. Finally, after repeated assurances that sharing their stories would be a positive thing, the women featured in the book agreed to talk. All of the women featured in the book are heterosexual, some married with children, some with careers.
“They were all strangers. They did not know each other. And they started ... writing their stories and sharing their experiences.”
The book is available online and at Pyramid Art Books & Custom Framing in Little Rock.
During a short book tour that followed its release, “we noticed there were so many women showing up ... who just never thought AIDS and HIV would ever affect them ... there were so many women who just hadn’t thought about it,” Mabin says.
EVENTS, ACTIVITIES
Highlights among the World AIDS Day events include:
A news conference, noon Saturday at Philander Smith College in Little Rock. The winners of the first World AIDS Day Essay and Poster Contest will be announced and will read or display their work.The event will conclude with a balloon-releasing ceremony to commemorate the lives of those who have succumbed to HIV/AIDS.
Sometimes I Cry, a performance by Sheryl Lee Ralph, award-winning actress and AIDS activist, from 7 to 9 p.m. Saturday at Wildwood Park for the Arts, 20919 Denny Road in Little Rock. Ralph wrote the show, which was inspired by the life stories of women infected and affected by HIV/AIDS.
A testing event, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at Pulaski Technical College’s Campus Center Building, 3000 W. Scenic Drive, North Little Rock.
For more information about the events and activities, contact Patricia Minor at (501) 686-2720 or (877) 264-2826. Visit arminorityhealth.com to learn more about the Arkansas Minority Health Commission’s HIV/AIDS Prevention Coalition.
Style, Pages 27 on 11/27/2012