The New York Times - November 24, 1985
Laurie A. O'Neill

"We are trying to get the right information out, not only to people in high-risk groups, but to health professionals, community leaders and to the general public, which is not thinking rationally about this," said William Sabella, the Health Department's AIDS coordinator.

There have been 157 cases of AIDS (139 males and 18 females) reported to the Health Department since July 1983, when state surveillance of AIDS cases began. Of those cases, 87 people have died, including 3 infants. On average, nine new AIDS cases are turning up each month, Mr. Sabella said. "And we expect, as does the Centers for Disease Control, that the figures will double every year for the next five years at least," he said.

Connecticut ranks 13th in the incidence of AIDS, acquired immune deficiency syndrome, with its 157 known cases accounting for about 1.1 percent of those reported nationwide, Mr. Sabella said. When that figure is adjusted by Connecticut's population of about 3 million, however, the state ranks "somewhat higher, probably due to our proximity to New York City, the epicenter of the problem," he said.

The highest number of AIDS cases in Connecticut, 59, has been reported in Fairfield County. New Haven County has 49 cases, and Hartford County, 33. Only a few cases each have been reported in the state's less populated, more rural sections like Litchfield and Windham Counties, he said.

AIDS is a condition that breaks down the immune system, leaving victims vulnerable to a variety of infections, rare illnesses and cancers that do not normally affect healthy people.

Experts say the AIDS virus is not transmitted through casual contact with people who have the disease, are infected with the virus or are in high-risk groups: homosexual or bisexual men, intravenous drug users, hemophiliacs, blood transfusion recipients or the sexual partners, male or female, of such people.

It is safe to give blood in licensed blood centers or to receive blood, said Jan Jaskiewicz of the American Red Cross in Farmington. "We now test every blood sample and we have always used new, sterile equipment for each donor," she said.

The virus can be transmitted by direct contact with an infected person's body fluids, primarily blood or semen. Of the 93 known Connecticut cases, 93 involve homosexual or bisexual males, Mr. Sabella said. There have been 33 cases among intravenous drug users. The other cases include a small number of hemophiliacs and of children who apparently contracted the disease while in the womb or during birth. The rest are victims whose link to a high-risk group has not yet been made.

Mr. Sabella estimated that between 5,000 and 15,000 Connecticut residents have been infected with the AIDS virus, which has an incubation period of between a few months and five years. But he said it was believed that the majority of those infected would never develop AIDS or the lesser, though sometimes fatal, symptoms of AIDS-related complex.

Mr. Sabella's work as AIDS coordinator for the state is financed by a Federal grant. He collects reports from doctors and other health workers and converts the names of AIDS victims into code before submitting them to the National Centers for Disease Control. The actual reports, with the victims' names, are known only to Mr. Sabella and kept in a locked file at the Health Department.

To date, Dr. Hadler and Mr. Sabella have been responsible for handling AIDS issues - providing public information, developing state policies and keeping track of cases. "It's become increasingly apparent," Dr. Hadler said, "that we need more help so that the Health Department can take a more aggressive stance on this problem."

Governor O'Neill recently approved the spending of about $350,000 to add 10 positions, of which 7 will be professional and 3 clerical, to the epidemiology section by early next year. The larger staff will enable the state to provide more public information, address more directly the needs of high-risk groups, offer counseling and conduct AIDS screening, he said.

"Mostly, we need to allay public anxiety," Mr. Sabella said. "People fear that everyone is going to get AIDS sooner or later."

The Health Department and other state agencies have put forth guidelines for use by schools, prisons and other public institutions. The state says, for example, that children with AIDS or AIDS-related complex should be allowed to attend school as long as they do not demonstrate serious behavioral problems like biting, and are not acutely ill.

Some Connecticut school districts are making their own AIDS policies, however, and a few have already chosen not to follow state guidelines.

Two New Haven children with AIDS were denied admission to kindergarten this fall and are being tutored "in another setting," according to Dr. John Dow Jr., the New Haven Superintendent of Schools. There is a third child who is suspected of having AIDS and if a diagnosis is confirmed, that child will also be removed, he said.

"Connecticut has a law that says a child with a communicable disease is to be excluded from school," he said. "And we consider AIDS a communicable disease."

The Hartford school system has no known cases of AIDS or of AIDS-related complex, but the Board of Education has adopted a policy that would temporarily exclude such children from school and provide them with tutors while their cases are assessed by a panel composed of the child's parents, physician, teacher and principal, the school's physician and a representative from the City Health Department.

The children will be returned to class unless they are too ill or are a behavior problem, said Lynn Dolan, a spokesman for the school system.

In Plymouth, where about 2,000 youngsters are enrolled in public schools and there are no known cases of AIDS or AIDS-related complex, the Board of Education has agreed to exclude such children permanently and to educate them in another setting, said Dr. Virginia Grzymkowski, the Superintendent of Schools.

"Emotions run so high on this issue and media hype is so intense," she said. "You just can't cut through that. We wanted to be prepared for 'if' -and should you look at the statistics, it's more like 'when' - an AIDS child turns up."

The Connecticut Department of Correction has decided to isolate AIDS cases in the state prison system. There are now 14 known cases of AIDS-related complex and 1 of AIDS among prisoners in the state, according to Dr. Edward Wurzel, director of health services for the Correction Department. As of Dec. 1, all male prisoners with AIDS or the complex will be placed in a separate ward at the state prison in Somers. Shortly thereafter, women with the disease will be moved into a separate ward at the state prison for women in Niantic.

"As far as what's known about AIDS, there is no medical reason to isolate these prisoners," Dr. Wurzel said. "But there is a tremendous emotional reason - the concerns of the staff and of the other prisoners."

While the state expands its Health Department to deal with the AIDS problem, private groups helping victims and their families and providing information on the disease say they are overwhelmed by the demand for their services.

"It's incredible," said Dr. Alvin Novick, a Yale Universiy biology professor and co-founder of AIDS Project New Haven. "It doesn't stop for a second."

The two-year-old nonprofit organization consists of a paid coordinator and about 50 volunteers. Its programs depend on small grants and private donations. The group offers a weeknight hot line, to which the number of calls has increased steadily to about two dozen a night, said Eileen Becker Dunn, a research associate at Yale Medical School who is the coordinator of the hot line.

She said her staff deals with a wide range of callers, from the "worried well" to AIDS patients, doctors, nurses and educators. A caller can even be given the name of an undertaker who is sympathetic to the needs of the family of an AIDS victim. "We've had one funeral director in the area who refused to bury an AIDS victim," she said.

Increased public concern about AIDS and the growing number of AIDS cases has prompted the formation of other such projects in the state. The Hartford AIDS Project, a division of the Hartford Gay Health Collective, was established three months ago to provide counseling, screening and health care.

A Newtown physician, Dr. Donald T. Evans, has organized AIDS Project Greater Danbury. The group works with the Danbury Hospital and the local visiting nurses association to provide counseling and home health care for AIDS victims.

An AIDS patient, Gerard Wagner, and another Litchfield resident, Jeff McLeod have operated the Northwestern Connecticut AIDS Project for two months out of Mr. Wagner's kitchen "on a shoestring," Mr. McLeod said.

"People in Litchfield County may think they're immune to such problems, but they aren't," he said. "There's a need for us here or the phone wouldn't ring 24 hours a day and the mail wouldn't pile up."

The group sponsored an AIDS Awareness Week that started last Sunday in Torrington with a panel discussion whose participants included Mr. Sabella and Dr. Novick. The group is also producing a weekly program on a local cablevision station. The program, titled Afraids, seeks to provide factual information about the disease, Mr. McLeod said.

A 28-year-old Litchfield native, Mr. McLeod said he had become involved with the AIDS project because "when something like this touches your community, you have to do something about it." Still, he occasionally suffers "sneers and remarks," and he said that at a recent speaking engagement "people came in and sat only in the back rows, as if I were contagious - by association."

Mr. McLeod said that private regional AIDS projects like the one he is involved with need more support from the state. "We are the ones that have been doing all the groundwork," he added, a sentiment shared by Dr. Novick.

"There are so many private people who are giving up their time and resources," Dr. Novick said. "But we can never hope to cope fully with the need without more assistance from the public sector. Though I'm disappointed that it took so long for the state to come up with a plan to deal with the problem, I'm looking forward to the possibility that its new program will be a productive one."

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