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 - November 30, 2006
Courtney Mabeus, cmabeus@dcexaminer.com
When World AIDS Day dawns Friday, the number of people living with HIV or AIDS in the District will be five times higher than anyplace else in the country and even some sub-Saharan African nations, city leaders say.
In a city with about 600,000 residents, D.C. HIV/AIDS Administrator Marsha Martin estimates that as many as 26,000 people might have HIV. That number does not include the District's 9,000 active AIDS cases, she said.
"That is of epic proportions," Martin said Wednesday.
And women, particularly from Wards 7 and 8, are slowly becoming the face of the HIV/AIDS in the District, Rep. Eleanor Homes Norton said.
At Whitman-Walker Clinic, which was established in the 1970s to offer health support to gay men, more and more women are being treated for HIV and AIDS, spokeswoman Kim Mills said. Many of those women are drug addicts, involved with drug addicts or have had intercourse with an infected male.
"We should all be distressed that in Ward 7 and Ward 8, as many women as men have HIV and AIDS," Norton said Wednesday.
District leaders, including Norton and Martin, are more apt to point out what they're doing now to combat the disease's spread and to treat those infected than to point fingers. When they do try to pinpoint reasons, they point out Congress' refusal to fund syringe-exchange programs to help shield drug addicts, and the District's longtime lack of leadership on the issue.
Martin, who took over her current role in September 2005, is largely credited with helping turn the District's HIV/AIDS response around. Under her stewardship, the city has begun a massive campaign to encourage all residents between the ages of 14 to 84 to get tested.
"My challenge on this AIDS Day is to get people talking about HIV," Martin said. "The reality is, the message has been targeted to certain communities, certain populations and certain neighborhoods."
To mark AIDS Day, Norton has scheduled five roundtable discussions about the illness.
The District, as well as Whitman Walker, have also planned a series of awareness events, the largest of which is a historical photo exhibit, "Our Heroes," in the John A. Wilson Building. It will be unveiled Friday night.
AIDS activist Wallace Corbett, who has been living with HIV for more than a decade, helped to create the exhibit over four years. With the prevalence of HIV in the District so high, the exhibit is as much about the last 25 years in D.C. as it is about the illness, he said.
"It allows you to see someone else who could have been you," Corbett said about the exhibit.
World AIDS Day
Today
* "A Self-Examination on the D.C. HIV/AIDS Epidemic." 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in the eighth floor rotunda of the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW.
Friday
* World AIDS Day Candlelight Vigil, 5:45 p.m., Freedom Plaza, 14th St. and Pennsylvania Avenue NW.
* "Our Heroes" exhibit opening, honoring the 25-year history of HIV/AIDS in D.C., 6:45 p.m. John A. Wilson Building, 1350 Pennsylvania Ave. NW.
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