The Miami Herald, Inc.; Friday, February 14, 1997
Peggy Rogers and Stephen Smith; Herald Staff Writers

TEXT: A relentless killer for 15 years, AIDS has claimed a greater number of Florida residents with every passing year.

Mark 1996 as the turning point. The state recorded its first-ever decline in AIDS deaths.

For a state bearing the nation's third largest number of infected people, the one-year decline is huge -- about 25 percent fewer deaths statewide, according to jubilant state health authorities.

"It's dramatic, and it's really hopeful," said Thomas Liberti, associate chief of the Florida HIV/AIDS Program. "It's just wonderful to see people living a much better quality of life."

The 1996 drop is attributable to medical advances, particularly potent new drug treatments, state authorities and medical experts say.

The decline comes even before the state starts paying to put many poor and uninsured patients on costly and life-prolonging protease inhibitor drugs.

"The majority of HIV/AIDS patients right now are not on the new protease inhibitors, and we've seen these declines with just the other anti-viral drugs," said Annie Neasman, state health chief for Dade and Monroe counties. "Just think what it will be when more people are on the protease inhibitors."

While death certificates for the last two months of 1996 are still coming in, officials projected the 1996 totals from the first 10 months of declining deaths.

Their tally: Fewer than 3,300 Florida residents died last year of AIDS, compared with nearly 4,400 in 1995.

In Broward County, the number of deaths dropped from 624 to 567. In Dade, it went from 1,229 to 960.

"I was talking to someone today who said all of his friends have died, and if it weren't for these medications, he would be dead, too," said Sheri Kaplan, founder of the Center for Positive Connections, a support agency for Broward and Dade residents. "This is the same man I saw in a wheelchair six months ago."

But experts urge caution in interpreting the gains.

Just because fewer people with AIDS are dying does not mean fewer people will become infected, said Marc Lichtman, chief executive of Health Crisis Network, South Florida's largest private AIDS agency.

"I don't think there should in any way be complacency that we've beaten it," Lichtman said.

Still, medicine is gaining on the epidemic.

Among the signs of prolonged life in South Florida: AIDS wards have vacant beds; patients are resuming work; doctors believe the disease will become more chronic illness than swift death sentence.

The medical industry, which once viewed AIDS treatments as a sure moneymaker, has lowered its expectations. And patients cashing in their life insurance policies command less and less because of prolonged life expectancies.

Because of potent new drug combinations, fewer people are contracting the opportunistic infections that killed. The infections they do contract are more quickly overcome, medical experts have found.

"I've seen them transformed within a couple of months," Positive Connections' Kaplan said. "They're new people. They're smiling, they have energy, they don't think they're going to die."

But the protease inhibitors have been in approved use only for about a year -- too soon to know whether their benefits will endure.

With AIDS striking 60,000 residents since its emergence, Florida still ranks third in the nation, authorities caution. It continues to have the second highest number of children with AIDS.

"Fewer children are being born with the AIDS virus, and the new drugs are changing the outlook for many people," Florida health Secretary Dr. James Howell said in a statement Thursday. "But we can't relax. We still need to fight AIDS on all fronts."

Herald staff writers Karen Rafinski and Mark Silva contributed to this report.

CORRECTION < * A chart on Friday's front page contained an incorrect legend. See source document at http://www.herald.com for corrected chart.<

CAPTION: color chart: Drop in AIDS death

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