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Date Posted: 20:32:33 02/28/02 Thu
Author: Anonymous
Subject: Aids: American Indians latest victims of the disease

Aids: American Indians latest victims of the disease

By Nicholas K. Geranios
The Associated Press
http://www.amarillonet.com/stories/011702/bel_aids.shtml

SPOKANE, Wash. - The rate of AIDS is higher among American Indians than it is for whites, and health officials fear the number of cases will climb even higher.

There is a tremendous stigma attached to HIV and AIDS among Indians, which can make people reluctant to be tested for the disease, experts said during a recent briefing at the National Congress of American Indians.

"People still see it as a gay, white man's disease," said Jack Jackson Jr., a Navajo and consultant to the National Native American AIDS Prevention Center.

The stigma, along with poverty, isolation and poor medical care, are factors in the spread of HIV and AIDS among Indians, officials said.

The numbers remain relatively small, in part because the number of Indians is much smaller than the rest of the population and because many Indians are not tested for the disease, they said.

There have been 3,208 Indians infected with HIV from the beginning of the epidemic through last December, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Of those, 2,337 people developed AIDS, and 1,217 have died, the agency said.

But the rate of AIDS among Indians is 11.3 per 100,000 people, compared to 9 per 100,000 for whites, the CDC said.

That prompted U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher recently to label HIV/AIDS a time bomb among Indians.

The federal government and Indian tribes are trying to increase awareness, testing and treatment of AIDS among Indians, said Michael Bird, executive director of NNAAPC.

Indians have a long history of susceptibility to new diseases, Bird said, trailing back to their first encounters with whites.

The federal government has an obligation to provide health care for Indians with AIDS as a result of its takeover of traditional Indian lands, he said.

Reasons for the high rate of AIDS among Indians include greater social problems related to alcoholism, drug abuse and poverty among Indians that can lead to self-esteem issues and reckless behavior, Jackson said.

"A young, gay Indian man ... may not hold himself in high regard and act out in a safe way," Jackson said.

At the same time, that person may not have easy access to a clinic to be tested for HIV, or to obtain drugs to fight the disease, said Jeanne Bertolli, an epidemiologist for the CDC involved in AIDS prevention efforts.

As a result, a person with HIV can spend years passing the disease to others through sexual contact, she said.

Indians also suffer from high rates of intravenous drug abuse, which is another way that AIDS can spread, Bertolli said.

"When these conditions are present, we can see an explosive spread of HIV," she said.

The key to preventing that spread is federal money to pay for expanded education programs, Bertolli said.

There needs to be improved reporting of how many HIV cases are showing up, since only 34 states currently do that reporting, she said.

Also, Indians are frequently misclassified as white or Latino, which serves to reduce awareness of the disease among Indians, she said.

Finally, improvements are needed in delivering drugs that delay the transition of HIV to AIDS among Indians, Bertolli said.

Many Indians live far from large medical facilities, she said.

"We have to make drugs more accessible to people," she said.

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