Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2006. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
San Francisco Examiner - June 23, 2006
Kelsey Volkmann, kvolkmann@baltimoreexaminer.com
"As with the whole country, there has been a very slow and gradual upward climb" in the number of HIV patients, said Bernice Colver, a nurse and case manager who works with HIV and AIDS patients for the county's Health Department.
Currently, 132 people with HIV and 47 with AIDS live in Carroll, according to a recent report compiled by the Partnership for a Healthier Carroll County, a nonprofit devoted to improving the public's health. Last year's report did not include the number of people with AIDS.
In the eight years Colver has worked at the department, the number of cases for AIDS and HIV she manages has doubled to 50, she said. In that same time, eight people died from AIDS-related illnesses.
Not all patients are treated through the Health Department, however, as other instances of the virus have been reported through private doctors as well.
As the county continues to grow and education efforts reach larger audiences, more people are getting tested for the virus, Colver said.
Of the more than 6,400 people in Carroll who were tested for HIV from 1995 to 2003, 57 tested positive, according to the 2004 Maryland HIV/AIDS Annual Report. The county has never studied the data to determine how the majority of infected residents contracted the virus, whether through intercourse or intravenous drug use, but, as with the rest of Maryland and the United States, the fastest-growing group of new infections are heterosexuals under the age of 24 and young women, she said.
The report was released Tuesday at the county health department's 10th annual Risky Business Prevention Conference in Westminster.
Colver said she coordinates education efforts at the schools to teach students about HIV and AIDS. "There is still a stigma attached to HIV," she said. "So we still have a lot of work to do."
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