BBC News - Friday, 14 November, 2003
Ian Brimacombe,BBC, Washington DC

Mr Harris comes here for treatment five time a week. Today he will swallow 24 pills. He will also need leg braces to walk from room to room.

Mr Harris is one of the growing number of African Americans living with Aids.

"I'm living my life as best I can with the limits that I have," he says, "but it's changed my life in the sense that I can't do the things I once did."

Mr Harris is sick, but he was tested for his condition and he's getting treated. Most African Americans with Aids are not like him.

Changing behaviour

Barbara Chin is the director of the Max Robinson centre, an Aids clinic that services a largely poor black population in South East Washington DC.

She says there has been a huge increase in the number of Aids cases in the African American community in Washington. "They aren't practising risk reduction," she says.

"If you're concerned with your general health care, the health of your children the health of your family, where you're going to live, how you're going to provide food for your family, employment, HIV is just another problem. So, people don't know what their status is. They're not being tested."

Although African Americans make up only 12% of the population, data from 2001 says they accounted for half of the new HIV infections reported in the United States.

One man trying to fight the statistics is Anthony Rawls, who works with the Church Community Partners Against HIV/Aids.

Outside a large African American event at the convention centre in downtown Washington, he hands out condoms and brochures. He's a charismatic man and his gold-toothed grin and easy style go down well with the teenagers on the street.

But Mr Rawls says getting young people's initial attention is the easy part. His real job, he says, is getting people to change their behaviour.

"We're facing this crisis because a lot of people still believe it can't happen to them," he says. "They're taking that risk." In other words, he says, too many people continue to practice unsafe sex.

Infected or affected

In Washington DC, Aids is infecting straight black men, gay black men and, increasingly, black women - often the girlfriends and wives of men who are secretly also having sex with other men, says Rawls.

Most of these people are clustered in one part of the city, east of the Anacostia river in South East DC.

It's said everyone in this part of town is infected or affected by Aids and on Sunday many of them come together to pray.

At the Covenant Baptist church on South Capitol Street, choir members and the pastors gather wearing their red green, black, and gold robes. Light shines through stained glass which depict biblical scenes of a black Jesus surrounded by his black disciples.

In today's sermon, the Reverend Christine Wiley announces the formation of a bible studies group, which will bring people together to talk about Aids.

She says denial has been one of the main factors contributing to rising rates in this community. And she says enough is enough.

"What needs to happen is a change of attitudes," she says. But she's optimistic. "Things that we wouldn't talk about before in the church, now we're having very frank conversations about." Aids, she says, is at the top of that list.

But, so far, there is no sign that awareness is making an impact on the numbers. Whether community leaders can make a difference, really depends on whether people in the community are prepared to listen, practise risk reduction and get tested.

Race and HIV

Racial breakdown of HIV infections in the US:

African Americans: 50%

Whites: 29%

Latinos: 19%

Others: 2%

Source: Center for Disease Control & Prevention, 2001
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