AIDS/HIV is regarded as the leading cause of death for black women between the ages of 25 to 34 photo courtesy of www.4women.gov

A Growing Epidemic

By Ally Dowds

“We’ve come in to a complacent attitude about what is HIV. There is still an underlying attitude that it only happens to gay males, and because of that the attitude is it can’t happen to me,” said Lou Medellin, the education outreach coordinator for BeHive, an AIDS center in Chicago’s Rogers Park.

This “complacent attitude” has only added fuel to a deadly fire that is claiming innocent victims across the world. AIDS is a deadly, incurable disease that continues to hastily spread, threatening to become a global epidemic.

Each year, 40,000 new cases of HIV/AIDS are reported in the United States alone. In Chicago, 22,000 individuals are living with the virus –the city constitutes 70 percent of all AIDS cases in Illinois, labeling it as a hub for the deadly infection.

Worse yet, young African-American women, especially those living in poverty, are becoming the fastest growing population to become infected with the AIDS virus.

Dr. Ayana Karanja, associate professor of the Black World Studies Program at Loyola University Chicago correlates the rapid spread of HIV among black women with a lack of resources and awareness.

“The reasons are many, but among them is the lack of awareness about the types of sexual behaviors related to the transmission of AIDS,” Karanja said. “Young black women's information regarding sexual engagement often comes by word of mouth rather than through health practitioners, literature and the like.”

Today, AIDS/HIV is regarded as the leading cause of death for black women between the ages of 25 to 34, according to the Centers for Disease Control. In 2003 black women accounted for 67 percent of AIDS cases among women, contacting the deadly virus 25 times the rate of white women.

To put things in perspective, of the 3,813 women in Chicago living with the AIDS/HIV virus, 74 percent are African American. Of all AIDS cases involving African American women, heterosexual contact is regarded as the leading cause of infection; drug use is second.

Poverty and a lack of available resources both contribute to the high infection rates among black women, but other factors such as dependency and indifference also are held accountable. African-American women who are significantly dependent on men, especially older men, tend to be more willing to resort to partaking in risky, sexual behaviors without the use of protection, according to an article in the Wilmington Journal.

“What needs to be done is education … curtailing that information to address women’s issues,” Medellin said. “[It is about] empowering women to ask questions, empowering women to demanding certain rights. I have the right to ask you to take an HIV test and I have the right to see that test result and that’s a very hard thing to do.”

AIDS is not a disease that can be ignored or will vanish; therefore, Karanja realizes the importance of educating oneself about the perils of the deadly disease. However, she does acknowledge that AIDS education is not only a personal responsibility, but a duty of the state to help engage individuals by providing adequate, financial resources.

“AIDS has already reached epidemic proportions in countries such as Africa,” Karanja said. “There has to be a willingness on the part of federal, state and local governments to invest the funds necessary to wage a full scale offensive against AIDS.”