Miami Herald - Friday, APR 19 1985
Steve Sternberg, Herald Medical Writer

Government and local scientists have calculated that Belle Glade has an AIDS rate of 1.85 cases per thousand of population, compared with 0.359 per thousand for New York City, which has one-third of the nation's AIDS cases.

Belle Glade's extraordinary outbreak leaves researchers perplexed and worried because they cannot pinpoint how so many people are coming down with the disease. Their suspicions range from mosquitoes to heterosexual contact -- sources that until a few weeks ago were hardly considered threats.

At least 37 AIDS cases have been confirmed in Belle Glade, most in residents of shabby, low-income neighborhoods in the city's southwest section, said David Withum, an epidemiologist with the Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services.

What worries researchers, Withum said, is that 17 of the cases -- 51 percent -- developed in people who would not ordinarily be considered in danger of contracting the disease. High-risk groups are homosexual and bisexual men, abusers of intravenous drugs, and recipients of blood or blood products.

The disproportionate spread of the disease outside those risk groups has prompted researchers to speculate that the disease may be transmitted by mosquitoes -- and influenced by such other factors as malnutrition, poor sanitation and previous illnesses.

Researchers now recognize that AIDS is spread heterosexually, as readily by women to men as by men to women. The disease continues to spread: As of April 1, a total of 9,319 cases had been diagnosed nationwide. The ailment is nearly always fatal.

There are 335 cases in Dade County, 88 cases confirmed in Broward and 77 in Palm Beach, with half of those in Belle Glade.

AIDS, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome, ravages the body's ability to fight off infections. Victims typically die of rare ailments previously seen only in cancer and transplant patients or others whose bodily defenses were destroyed.

The ailment apparently is caused by the human T-lymphotrophic virus (HTLV--3), other strains of which have been linked to cancer. Until recently, scientists believed that AIDS could only be spread by human-to-human contact through blood, semen and possibly saliva. But other theories surfaced Thursday at a conference in Atlanta.

One of those, coupled with recent evidence that AIDS can be transmitted through common household contact, is the belief that mosquitoes and other biting insects can inoculate healthy people with blood infected with HTLV-3, the virus believed to cause AIDS.

"We have found no evidence that biting insects transmit AIDS," Withum said. "But we can't rule that out."

The Belle Glade cases include five homosexuals or bisexuals, one heterosexual and 14 intravenous drug users, Withum said. The 17 who were in no identifiable risk group include one from Honduras, 10 of Haitian origin and six who were born in the southeastern United States.

The data on the Belle Glade outbreak has been collected by Withum, of the state health department, and Drs. Mark Whiteside and Caroline MacLeod of the Institute of Tropical Medicine at Southeastern Medical Center in North Miami. Whiteside and MacLeod travel to Belle Glade twice a month to treat patients.

The two doctors have begun research to determine whether the large number of AIDS cases might be linked to the substandard housing and sanitary conditions in which thousands of Belle Glade residents live.

All the long-time Belle Glade residents who contracted AIDS lived in substandard housing.

Open refuse disposal and inadequate sanitation have been long-standing problems in Belle Glade. All the city's areas now have access to public sewers, but drainage problems and a lack of neighborhood upkeep are still of concern.

"Those (substandard conditions) certainly are here. I wish there would be a fire lit under people to make changes," said Sister Barbara Braun, a social worker with the Haitian Catholic Center in Belle Glade. She helps Belle Glade's Haitian immigrants obtain medical care.

Still, Braun said she's concerned that panic over AIDS could spread.

Whiteside and MacLeod are not limiting their efforts to AIDS. They are searching for possible links between living conditions and other diseases as well.

Herald Staff Writers Randy Loftis and Ellyn Ferguson contributed to this story.

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