'Get Screened Oakland' HIV-AIDS program is unique in nation

Aids

In 1998, Oakland declared a state of emergency because of AIDS in the African-American community. A decade later, African-Americans are among the hardest hit by the HIV-AIDS epidemic, which affects more than 1 million people in the United States.

Still, many people in Oakland with HIV were not diagnosed until the virus developed into full-blown AIDS — a preventable development.

That might have been understandable 15 years ago when testing and treatment were still new, said Marsha Martin, director of the Get Screened Oakland initiative of which outreach and routine testing are the cornerstones. "But not today," she said.

While a cure still eludes researchers, HIV no longer carries with it a death sentence when treated early enough.

That is why the Get Screened Oakland program aims to make screening a routine part of health care and involve everyone — from hospitals to the business community and churches — in combating HIV-AIDS and the isolation and stigma that accompanies the virus in some communities.

The message of the campaign: Don't wait until symptoms show up, and get tested regardless of risk.

"It's a virus," Martin said. "HIV can happen to all of us."

The approach to HIV testing as routine health care defines the approach that Get Screened Oakland is trying to introduce in order to develop a self-sustaining program that pulls in all sectors of the community and permeates the city.

"We can do something about this now," Martin said Monday evening at an awards ceremony to mark World AIDS Day. "This is about the winnable public health victory."

It is a victory that has eluded health officials from Oakland, which accounts for the overwhelming majority of AIDS cases in Alameda County — 4,300 of the 7,400 diagnosed between 1980 and 2007, the year Mayor Ron Dellums launched the city's initiative. Since June 2007, the city has provided $200,000 per fiscal year to the program, which also is funded by private and public grants.

The next phase, Martin said, is to put the community machinery in motion and capture federal funding that would provide the necessary level of resources needed to "get the job done."

Past efforts by the city were fragmented, ineffective and aimed at too narrow a target population that was defined by San Francisco's AIDS epidemic, Martin said. In Oakland, all but 200 of the 4,300 AIDS cases diagnosed since 1980 were African-American and Latino, she said.

"Those days have passed. Now we have to get everyone tested," said Martin, who is focusing efforts at getting hospitals and clinics involved to reach more people.

Making testing more common means people who are HIV positive can get care earlier and are less likely to pass on the virus. Highland Hospital, Kaiser Permanente and Alta Bates Summit Medical Center already are routinely offering to screen emergency room patients. Children's Hospital Oakland is considering introducing a similar program.

The four engines driving infection today are poverty, homophobia, intravenous drug use and homelessness, said Kabir Hypolite, acting director of the Office of AIDS Administration for the Alameda County Public Health Department.

But the biggest problem facing diagnosis is ignorance, he added.

A quarter of the people in the United States living with HIV are unaware that they are infected, according to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Those numbers are mirrored in Alameda County, where about 6,000 people are living with HIV, Hypolite said. Another 6,000 are estimated to be infected, but only half are aware of their status.

"It's the shame issue," said Belinda Dronkers-Lauretz, executive director of API Family Pride, a Bay Area organization that reaches out to gay and lesbian Asian Pacific Islanders. "We need to break that barrier."