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."
