World AIDS Day is December 1

The 16th annual World AIDS Day will be observed December 1 to increase awareness of HIV/AIDS around the world. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) hopes to reduce new infections of HIV disease from 40,000 per year to 20,000 by 2005.

“With 40,000 people a year becoming infected with HIV nationally, this would indicate a few hundred people a year are becoming infected with HIV in Kansas, but don’t realize it,” said Karl Milhon, Director of the Kansas HIV/STD Program. “These individuals need to be tested to ensure proper treatment steps are taken soon enough to have an impact on their health.”

Early Testing Necessary

In Kansas in 2002, 82 new cases of HIV infection and 55 new cases of AIDS were reported to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE). Unfortunately 57% of the AIDS cases were diagnosed with HIV less than one year earlier. While this is an improvement over previous years (67% and 70% in 2000 and 2001 respectively), Kansas still ranks behind other states studied which reported 39% of AIDS cases were diagnosed with HIV less than one year earlier. This is according to the 2002 CDC HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report.
“When you consider that on average an untreated person takes approximately 10 years after infection to develop AIDS, this raises questions as to whether they infected others during that time and how much the HIV medications would have significantly slowed the progression of their illness,” said Milhon. “Many Kansans are waiting until they get sick before getting tested for HIV, thus reducing the possibility for medications to be effective.”

Cases Increase Among Minorities

The rate of HIV infection in minority populations are disproportionately higher compared to the state population as a whole. The proportion of newly identified HIV positive individuals who are African American was over four times higher than their distribution with the Kansas population and for Hispanics it was more than two and one half times higher than their proportion in the population.

This disproportionate element in minorities is even more evident among women. In 2002, 54% of the cases of newly diagnosed disease were minorities, with Hispanic women accounting for 29% (7) and African American women accounting for 25% (6) of the newly diagnosed cases. Of newly diagnosed Kansas women since 1999, 18% were Hispanic and 37% were African American with all cases combined representing over 50% of women.

“If you are at risk, get tested,” Milhon urged. “And if you are uncertain about the risk of someone you might have been with over the last decade, get tested. It isn’t just your risk. It is also the people with whom you have been in contact..”

For more information on HIV prevention, testing, and care services in your area, please contact the KDHE HIV/STD program at 785-296-6173 or search local resources on the KDHE Web site at http://www.kdheks.gov/hiv/.

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