Hot Topic: World AIDS Day
December 1st is World AIDS Day, and several events are planned in the coastal Georgia area to raise awareness about the issue and encourage prevention, testing, and treatment. Click here for a calendar of events.
For more information about World AIDS Day, visit the website of the Centers for Disease Control.
For more information about HIV/AIDS Services in the Coastal Health District, click here.
Dr. Debbie Hagins has dedicated her career to helping people fight HIV/AIDS in Savannah. She is the Clinical Director of Outpatient Services in the Chatham County CARE Center, and recently authored this article about HIV/AIDS, which was published in the Savannah Health Perspectives magazine.
HIV/AIDS: Twenty-six Years and Still Counting?!
While many of the 300 million people in America have heard of HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), the organism that causes AIDS, most Americans are unaware of the epidemic brewing on our home soil. HIV exists in every zip code in America, across all income ranges, and among all educational levels. HIV is not in the air we breathe, the water that we drink, or in the foods that we eat. It is not spread by objects that we touch, our pets, wild animals, or insects. It makes no sound, has no odor, and has no arms or legs. The “H” stands for human. People knowingly or unknowingly spread HIV from themselves to someone else. This virus uses the sexual behaviors of men, women, and transgenders and other human practices, (namely IV drug use), to infect new human hosts. It has no voice and cannot be seen, and to millions of people infected worldwide, they bear the burden of disease in silence, anonymity, and pain. Let’s expose this enemy with our human voices by crying aloud…
“Not on my watch!”
Of the estimated 1 million people living with HIV/AIDS in this country, one fourth (250,000) do not know that they are infected, and even more Americans do not know their status. According to the Kaiser Foundation, the number one reason that people do not get an HIV test is because they believe they are not infected AND not at risk. That means that most of us assume we are negative, but according to statistics, only some of us are right. We can see the surface of the moon with a high-powered telescope, but we can’t see the threat of HIV with the naked eye when it is right beside us. While there has been a dramatic decline in the number of deaths from HIV in the past decade, the number of new infections in the US and the rest of the world have not seen the same decrease. There are 14,000 new HIV infections every day. Over 40,000 persons are infected with HIV annually in this country and 5 million worldwide, with half of these infections occurring in people under the age of 25. HIV/AIDS is now being called the “disease of young people”. HIV/AIDS is the number 1 killer of women of color aged 24-34, and the number 3 killer of women aged 35-44. One eighth of Americans are people of color but they represent one half of all new HIV infections. Approximately every hour of every day a teenager is getting infected with HIV. This madness must stop! We should be outraged! We are not powerless, but powerful! Not because we can control others, but because we can control ourselves. A well-known televangelist says, “You cannot conquer what you will not confront.” Know your HIV status. If you are negative, learn how to stay negative. If you are positive, seek medical care, disclose your status beforehand to potential sexual partners and healthcare professionals, help stop the epidemic, and learn how to stay healthy with this manageable disease.
Reflections.
At the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, there were no effective treatments. Twenty years ago there was only one medication to treat HIV—AZT; 15 years ago there were three. Now there are 30 medications to treat people infected with this virus. Two decades ago, having an HIV diagnoses was close to receiving a death sentence. Today, life expectancy is increasing and the quality of life is far better. What hasn’t changed in almost three decades is the stigma associated with being HIV positive. We can change this too by educating our communities and ourselves.
Where do we get new medicines?
Clinical trials in HIV began over two decades ago, and the research is on going. The Chatham County Health Dept. (CCHD), with great excitement and enthusiasm, is currently participating in four HIV clinical trials. One of them, GRACE, is the largest HIV trial to date examining differences in response to treatment based upon gender and race in treatment-experienced persons. A clinical trial is a medical research study designed to answer specific questions about new therapies or new ways of using known treatments. They are used to determine whether new drugs or treatments are both safe and effective. Carefully conducted clinical trials are the fastest and safest way to find treatments that work in people. Clinical trials are the vehicles that have brought us into the 21st century with life-sustaining treatment strategies for people living with HIV/AIDS. There is not yet a cure, but there is treatment. In the past year, medical advances have delivered two new classes of medications, offering a greater opportunity to control HIV in people with limited to no options left. The CCHD is pleased to offer these services to infected individuals of the coastal region.
So what can we say? The “H” in HIV stands for human, not humiliation. Humanity wants a cure. There is none at the moment. Until then, there is PREVENTION and treatment. HIV infects and affects everyone—the rich and the poor, the housed and the homeless, the educated and the illiterate, the professional and the laborer, the American- born and the foreign-born, the young and the old, the males and the females, the jailed and the free, the working and the unemployed, the heterosexual and the homosexual, the churched and the un-churched, the married and the single, the powerful and the powerless, and every race… 26 years into the epidemic…over 22 million dead from AIDS… and we are still counting new infections. Let us each know our status, learn our risk factors, stop the spread of HIV, and start counting the numbers of new dreams to be dreamed.
WWW Address: http://www.gachd.org/hot-topic/world_aids_day.php