DENVER – On March 20, the second annual National Native HIV/AIDS Awareness Day will bring an opportunity to increase protection from and prevention of this disease in Indian country.
More than 55 American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian communities have planned events for the day. The National Native American AIDS Prevention Center in Denver has community planning tools and assistance for others who would like to join in promoting awareness of a problem that has not received enough attention or reporting, according to the center’s executive director.
By 2005, nearly 11 out of every 100,000 American Indians and Alaska Natives had been diagnosed with HIV or AIDS, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, based on long-term reporting from only 33 states.
While that figure (about 3,240 people) represents less than 1 percent of the total HIV/AIDS diagnoses in the United States, the rate based on population puts American Indians and Alaska Natives as the third most affected population after blacks and Hispanics, and ahead of whites and Asians/Pacific Islanders (the categories used by the CDC).
As executive director of NNAAPC, Warren Jimenez, Chumash Nation/Coastal Band, believes those figures don’t reflect the full rate of infection in Indian country.
”There are significant gaps in reporting around this issue,” he said. ”I think that stigma is an issue to face, the issue of sexuality or being two-spirited or being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.”
The rate of infection among Native Hawaiians has been included in the Asian/Pacific Islander category for national statistics; but for the state of Hawaii specifically, those of Native Hawaiian descent represent 11 percent of the state’s total AIDS cases and their infection rate has increased about 3 percent since 1995.
Some behaviors that may indicate higher than reported incidences of HIV/AIDS infection, such as drug and alcohol abuse and infection of other sexually-transmitted diseases (gonorrhea, chlamydia and syphilis), have been on the rise, too, he said.
The prevention center is helping communities throughout Indian country to join in National Native HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. Native communities across the United States will have awareness events or HIV/AIDS testing on that day; specifics for each can be found on an interactive map at www.nnaapc.org/news/nnhaadmap.htm. The Native Capacity Building Assistance Network – comprised of the NNAAPC, the Center for Applied Studies in American Ethnicity and the Inter Tribal Council of Arizona – has created an online ”tool kit” that includes fact sheets and a poster to help communities promote awareness or to organize events for that day.
Life expectancy for American Indians and Alaska Natives infected with HIV is shorter than for any other racial or ethnic group, according to the prevention center. The development of drugs to treat HIV/AIDS and prolong the lives of those infected has made positive progress, but with a negative aspect.
”The downside to that is that people have grown numb [to the danger of infection],” Jimenez said. With AIDS no longer in the full media spotlight, people are forgetting that dangerous practices put them at risk.
The best way to beat this disease remains prevention of its spread. The Red Cross lists these as the main ways that the HIV virus (which causes AIDS) is currently transmitted:
* Having unprotected sex – vaginal, oral or anal – with someone who has the virus.
* Sharing needles and syringes with someone who has the virus.
* Exposing a baby to his or her HIV-positive mother during pregnancy, birth or through breastfeeding.
Jimenez said that the event is a positive and powerful way to increase knowledge and testing that can protect and prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.
”HIV is really kind of the silent epidemic right now. We need to ensure that it doesn’t blow up.”
Statistics from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Of the American Indians and Alaska Natives diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, 29 percent were women.
From the beginning of the epidemic until 2005, 32 American Indian or Alaska Native children were diagnosed with AIDS.
At the end of 2005, of the 1,477 American Indian and Alaska Native men and boys living with HIV/AIDS, 61 percent contracted the disease through male-to-male sexual contact, 15 percent through drug-use injection, 13 percent through both of the preceding behaviors, 10 percent through high-risk heterosexual contact, and the remaining 1 percent in other ways.
At the end of 2005, of the 558 American Indian and Alaska Native women and girls living with HIV/AIDS, 68 percent had contracted the disease through high-risk heterosexual contact, 29 percent through drug-use injection, and 2 percent in other ways.
