Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Community leaders pledged Thursday to take small steps to fight the HIV/AIDS epidemic that’s disproportionately affecting blacks in Houston.
At a lunchtime gathering, pastors promised to spread the word among their congregations, employers promised to encourage testing at work and young people said they’d talk with friends about ways to prevent the disease.
The campaign, organized by the Houston Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, kicked off at a gathering where black leaders discussed ways to mobilize Houstonians for the cause.
“I’m tired of talking about HIV. Let’s do something about it,” said Ada Edwards, a former city councilwoman who works as the mayor’s deputy chief of staff for neighborhoods.
More than half of new HIV infections reported in Harris County are among blacks, who make up only about 20 percent of the county’s population, according to the city health department, which tracks cases in the city and county.
The virus is spread through sex, sharing needles for drug use and from mother to child during birth.
A fourth of those infected don’t know it, said Dr. Stanley Lewis, chief medical officer at the St. Hope Foundation, a local nonprofit group for people infected with HIV or AIDS.
“Whatever we’re doing, it’s not working,” Lewis told about 150 people.
The number of new adult HIV cases in the county has slowly dropped over the past decade, however. In 2007, 1,020 new cases were reported, a decrease of 15 percent from the previous year, although city officials said some cases from 2007 haven’t yet been reported. About three-quarters of the new cases were in males.
The luncheon was part of a nationwide push by the CDC to raise awareness of the high rate of HIV/AIDS in blacks.
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