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Anniston Star Article - July 31, 2008
Advocates see increase in cases of HIV, AIDS
Hannah Dame Special to The Star
When it comes to HIV and AIDS care and prevention in the South and Calhoun County specifically, county HIV coordinator Tom Robertson worries many residents don't understand the severity of the problem. Documents get put on the back burner, he said. We don't talk about HIV as much as we did 10-15 years ago.
A new report released July 21 by the Southern AIDS Coalition hopes to bring attention to the fact the South is still the epicenter of the epidemic, said Kathy Hiers, director of AIDS Alabama and a co-author of the report. HIV and AIDS infections are on the rise in the South, and federal funding has not risen to match the need, she said. The South gets little money from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to Hiers. Her organization, AIDS Alabama, struggles to get enough funding to buy the HIV testing kits it needs, she said.
According to statistics gathered by the CDC, the South led the country in the number of AIDS deaths from 2001 to 2006, making up 46 percent of total AIDS deaths in the United States in 2006. The report focused on the many challenges faced by HIV/AIDS-prevention advocates in the South, including, but not limited to, the high incidence of other sexually transmitted diseases, the impact of poverty, a rural population, a lack of insurance and an overall lack of federal funding.
To help organizations combat these challenges, the Southern AIDS Coalition successfully lobbied to have the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act altered before it was reauthorized by Congress in 2006. In the reauthorization, allocation was based on the proportion of patients with both HIV and AIDS, and the eligible population limit for cities to receive emergency relief was lowered to more than 50,000.
Calhoun County has directly benefited from the coalition's efforts, according to Robertson. He said his department has, since the reauthorization, received more federal funding for its prevention and direct care programs. And Robertson predicted the department will continue to see an increase in funding, as emphasis is shifted from the historical epidemic in large cities to the new epidemic in the South.
According to statewide rankings collected by the Alabama Department of Public Health, Calhoun County is ranked seventh in the state for the number of cases of HIV and AIDS reported since 1985 with 278. Since 2006, Calhoun County has seen incremental changes in awareness of HIV among residents and the number of HIV-positive residents, but nothing major, Robertson said.
Robertson attributed the rise in the number of people testing HIV-positive to several new testing methods that do not require sticking with a needle, a move he said increases the number of people willing to be tested.
Bill Manning, executive director of the Health Services Center in Hobson City, said his clinic had also seen a rise in the number of people testing HIV-positive in the region the clinic covers, which includes Calhoun County. His largest concern is connecting residents with health care coverage and making sure they are cared for. With HIV/AIDS care, there are many different kinds of care involved, from medical to mental health, he said. As a society, a lot of patients live a lot longer, and treatment goes on, he said.
These concerns are compounded with the fact many residents of Calhoun County are not covered by medical insurance. Three or four percent of patients we see have insurance, he said. The number of cases coming into the clinic has not dropped off in the past few years, Manning said, and growth is coming from populations not historically associated with HIV/AIDS. When we think of AIDS, we think of a homosexual male, but it's not necessarily in that category, Manning said. The growth is coming in females who are Afro-American.
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