By Jeff Lipton
The disease has never really slowed, but it has lost attention, said Jill Williams, program director of the AIDS Services Program, which was launched by the Five Towns Community Center in Inwood in 1996 in response to the increasing numbers of AIDS victims locally.
The epidemic has steadily increased, she added. People are still getting infected. It's still very prevalent.
The Nassau County Department of Health earlier this year released an AIDS in Nassau County 2002 report, which listed Inwood virtually tied for third with Hempstead, behind Uniondale and Roosevelt, among the highest rates of HIV infection from 1996 to 2000. The report states that residents of Inwood have contracted the disease at a rate of 240 cases per 100,000 residents.
World AIDS Day is observed annually on Dec. 1, with the purpose of strengthening global efforts to address the challenges of the AIDS epidemic, which continues to spread throughout every region of the world, according to health officials. The day, which this year is the 15th annual, also remembers those who have died of the disease.
Long Island ranks among the leaders in the number of AIDS cases in suburban areas in the U.S. From 1985 through December 31, 2001, Nassau County health officials said, 3,414 residents of the county were diagnosed with AIDS and 2,042 died of the disease. Of the total number infected, officials said, 2,524 were between ages 30 and 49.
Every community in Nassau County has been affected by the AIDS epidemic, stated the report, which was compiled by the county health department's Division of HIV and STD (Sexually Transmitted Diseases) Control. People from the richest and poorest areas have died from the disease. Nevertheless, the communities that have shouldered the greatest burden of the disease are Freeport, Hempstead, Inwood, Roosevelt, Uniondale and Westbury. The residents of these towns also disproportionately suffer from high rates of sexually transmitted disease, teen pregnancy and poverty.
Although the incidence and mortality rates of all groups have decreased since the peak of the epidemic in 1995, the report said, the proportion of cases among African Americans and Hispanics has increased. Although about 10 percent of the county population is African American, 42 percent of AIDS cases have occurred in that group, the report said.
Jonathan Davis, executive director of the community center, said wherever there is a high rate of intravenous drug use in a community, high numbers of AIDS cases will follow. People share needles, said Davis.
He added that people having unprotected sex and with a variety of partners also contribute to the AIDS epidemic. It's a major problem, Davis said. People are dying. But rather than hearing that they died from AIDS, you hear that it was cancer or it was a heart attack. But it's still AIDS-related. It's a very difficult issue to deal with.
The community center has been dealing with the disease on several fronts. Case workers from the group's AIDS Services Program have been sending an outreach team of two or three workers into communities such as Inwood, to conduct adult peer education.
We do street community outreach in areas where there's a high level of risk, arising from drugs and those engaging in the sex trade, said Williams, whose office is at 175 Fulton Ave. in Hempstead, where 10 to 13 workers serve all of Nassau County. We try to engage these people in one-on-one conversations, giving them the resources they need and giving them the testing and the treatment they need.
She said the numbers also affect minorities more because of poverty and the lack of access to adequate health care. Communities of color are also dealing with diabetes, heart disease and breast cancer, Williams said.
She said education plays a major role in the fight against HIV and AIDS, and the disease just doesn't get the mainstream media attention anymore. People need constantly to get the message that HIV is still a problem, said Williams, whose office is kept alive by state and federal funding. Testing and early diagnosis is so important. So many people who are HIV positive don't even know it, and if they knew it, they could stop it from spreading.
Since AIDS was first identified in 1981, the disease has claimed more than 448,000 lives in the U.S. and an estimated 28.9 million worldwide, the report said. The epidemic was first identified among gay men in large cities, and then it surfaced in injection drug users, and by 1983 researchers discovered that it was transmitted in blood and blood products as well as from sexual activities. Since 1990, most cases have affected injection drug users, health officials said.
There is still no cure for AIDS. Up until 1995 it worked rapidly: The average time between diagnosis and death was 18 months. But in 1995 a drug was approved that prolonged survival for those infected with HIV. Many of the medications have serious side effects, must be taken frequently and are expensive.
The Centers for Disease Control estimates that up to one-third of those infected with HIV do no know it, which prevents them from getting early care and treatment.
HIV has increasingly become a woman's disease, and heterosexual contact is the greatest risk for women, followed by injection drug use.
Dr. Claudia Pollet, director of the county health department's Division of HIV and STD Control, who helped prepare the report, said that in Nassau County, AIDS has become a disease of people of color. As a result, the county funds the Long Island Minority AIDS Coalition (LIMAC) to reach minorities. AIDS is not over, Pollet said.
She added that People often say, Oh this doesn't happen to people like me.' They don't get tested and they don't practice safer sex.
