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AIDS United has given $750,000 to
three Birmingham organizations to ascertain the number of HIV-positive persons
in the Birmingham region who are not receiving treatment. With this grant, the
University of Alabama at Birmingham’s 1917 Clinic and the organization
Birmingham AIDS Outreach (BAO) will hire two social workers and a project
director to gather data on the HIV-positive residents, according to BAO
executive director Karen Musgrove. Aletheia House, a substance abuse treatment
and prevention service organization, will use $2,000 to provide office space
for the social workers at its facility.
Musgrove describes the steps that
they will use in working with an HIV-positive person without medical care. They
will ask the person why they are not in medical care and determine the barriers
that the person has experienced and how these barriers can be broken; they will
get the person back into medical care; and they will evaluate the person to
figure out ways to keep the individual in care. The Alabama Department of
Public Health estimates that there are approximately 6,000 HIV-positive persons
in Alabama who have not accessed health care in the last year. Musgrove cites
possible reasons, such as lack of transportation, being fearful and not wanting
to go to a physician, having mental health issues and substance abuse problems,
and being afraid to divulge their HIV status. James Raper, the 1917 Clinic’s
director, declares that being on HIV medication lowers the chance of passing on
HIV to someone else and lowers the viral load to “undetectable” levels. He
explains that, “Treatment is prevention. When we treat people, and they’re
undetectable, the chance of them passing on the virus to someone else is
negligible.”
The project will run for three
years, with the projected start date being January 1, 2013. During the first
year, the project is expected to reach 200 to 250 people who are not receiving
medical care.
The Friends of AIDS Foundation is
dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and
empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV
virus. To learn more about The Friends of AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.
TOGETHER WE REMAIN STRONG!
