Next year Baltimore will pit $25 million in federal AIDS funding against a growing national tide of ignorance and complacence about HIV and AIDS.
It?s a deadly mix.
“There was an expectation that the numbers in terms of new AIDS cases would be getting better by now, and I don?t think that?s panned out,” said Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Josh Sharfstein.
Federal funding cuts and the delayed release of the latest incidence data are making those on the front lines nervous.
A delay by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in releasing HIV data prompted widespread speculation that the numbers are dramatically higher than expected, according to the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF). The foundation expects rates to be up 50 percent or more over the previous CDC estimate of 40,000 new HIV cases per year.
In a Nov. 26 letter to the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors and others, the CDC announced plans to release the 2005 HIV incidence estimates “in the coming months.” The new numbers will be the first since the agency implemented a new system of data collection and analysis agency officials say will “provide more accurate and timely HIV incidence estimates.”
AHFPresident Michael Weinstein said the CDC should release at least the executive summary.
“The CDC is not an academic institution charged with collecting data to analyze for its own sake,” he said.
A World Vision survey released Nov. 30 revealed one in three adults in America and the developed world know little or nothing about the disease. That even after an estimated 28 million people died from AIDS over the past 26 years, according to the humanitarian organization.
Some gears nationally are starting to move in the right direction, after decades of slipping, Institute for Human Virology Director Robert Gallo said.
In September, the American Medical Association recommended making AIDS testing routine for all patients ages 13 to 64, “regardless of whether the patient is known or suspected to have specific behavioral risks for HIV infection.”
“It was the right step 25 years ago when we developed the blood test,” Gallo said.
Baltimore AIDS facts
» 15,963 HIV positive residents
»6,745 of whom have full-blown AIDS
» 5,893 of those are Black
» 4,271 are men
» 2,367 are women
Source: Maryland AIDS Administration statistics through June 2007
