World News

USA: Black Leaders Seek Support for HIV/AIDS Action Plan

PRNewsWire - 8th June, 2001

While simultaneously pledging to step up their own collaborative efforts to fight the HIV/AIDS epidemic in African- American communities, more than 100 Black leaders released a five-point action plan detailing the community's needs from the Bush Administration, and the demand for a declaration of a National State of Emergency.

The two-day gathering, called the "Meeting of the Millennium," was organized by the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS (NBLCA), in partnership with the Congressional Black Caucus, National Medical Association and the Surgeon General's The Leadership Campaign on AIDS. The meeting was underwritten by pharmaceutical leader GlaxoSmithKline.

The plan was unveiled today in a press conference at the Martin Luther King Chapel, Morehouse College, Atlanta, where the first college chapter of BLCA was launched.

"Our leadership is not bankrupt and they are ready to wage a new war on AIDS on behalf of their community and we all owe them a large debt of gratitude," said Debra Fraser-Howze, NBLCA president and CEO. "This was a bipartisan meeting of African-American Democrats and Republicans, all willing and ready to work with the Bush Administration in one of the most serious health crises that Black America has ever faced. We are dying and our survival is our first priority. Together, we can combat this pandemic through prevention, testing and treatment."

While the overall infection rate in the United States has dropped, the infection rate in Black communities has skyrocketed.

Although African Americans comprise less than 13 percent of that nation's population, they represent more than half (54 percent) of the total number of new HIV infection cases reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) through the end of last year.

The CDC estimates that 1 in 50 black men and 1 in 160 black women are infected with HIV, making blacks 10 times more likely than whites to be diagnosed with HIV and 10 times more likely to die of AIDS.

"This is sub-Saharan data," said Dr. Lucille Perez, president-elect of the National Medical Association. "It's easier to talk about the sub-Sahara than Brownsville, Brooklyn, or our own houses."

African Americans representing medicine, religion, government, education, social welfare, entertainment/media, business and philanthropy contributed to the action plan. The leaders identified five key areas in which the Bush Administration should focus its efforts. These are:

1. RESOURCE ALLOCATION - The direction of funds to where they are most needed, as indicated by the trends of the disease.
2. OUTREACH PROGRAMS - Support the creation and implementation of innovative initiatives addressing HIV/AIDS in highly affected populations, including gays, bisexuals, transgenders, incarcerated individuals, seniors and women involved with men who have sex with men.
3. HOUSING - Make the development of new housing units for individuals with HIV/AIDS a priority.
4. HEALTH OUCOMES - Eliminate racial/ethnic disparities in health outcomes for all chronic diseases, including HIV/AIDS and other STDs, hepatitis and tuberculosis.
5. INTERNATIONAL OUTREACH - Strengthen efforts to reduce HIV infections and AIDS mortality in Africa and support the development of permanent infrastructures to care for the tens of millions of children who are being orphaned by AIDS.

Participants in the action group have pledged to mobilize their own sectors of the community through tactics including issuing demands for a State of Emergency to be declared, educating business and social groups, and effecting public campaigns to de-stigmatize the face of AIDS and raise funds via lobbying.