2008 International AIDS Conference

Black Children Provide Some Good News in AIDS War

By Ivan Thomas

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MEXICO CITY -- There is finally some good news on the AIDS front.

“In the 1980’s, 1,500 infants were born with HIV,” said Kevin Fenton, director of the CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention. “That number dropped to less than 60 for 2006. This is due to better screening, better awareness, and infants being provided with antiretoviral therapy.”

The decline of mother to child infections is perhaps the major success story in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

With increasingly advanced technology and with health care provided for these children, it enables them to fight the virus more effectively. That all sounds good. But while the numbers are declining for other populations, the numbers are not declining in the Black communities. In 2005, out of the 141 prenatal infections among infants, 65 percent of them were Black, and they continue to make up the vast majority today.

Why?

“AIDS is a disease of poverty. Just like in Africa, the poor have less knowledge about it, and even when they do know, the supply is not there,” said Dr. Agnes Binagwaho, executive secretary for the National Commission for the Fight Against AIDS in Rwanda. She is a specialist on HIV/AIDS in Africa and around the world.

HIV/AIDS in infants can be transmitted in several ways, including before labor, during labor, and even afterward with the feeding of breast milk. However, experts say that many Black women are uneducated on this issue and therefore do not take the proper precautions.

In Binagwaho’s opinion, there is still a long way to go to diminish the number of Black children born with HIV.

“There is a need for strong structural innovation and change,” she said. “We need to increase the access to care and the quality.”

Dr. Jim Yong Kim, director for social medicine at Harvard University, said he also feels that structural problems in our government and health care system are to blame for the disproportionate numbers.

“All of the most important issues are structural issues,” he said. “It is poverty; it is lack of access to health care, lack of fair housing. It doesn’t have to do with the choices that African Americans make. They have fewer choices. If you put them in a position to where they have no choice but to make poor choices, what do you think is going to happen?”

Kim, a member of the Joint Learning Initiative on Children and HIV/AIDS, also observed that many programs have been cut that serve low-income African American women. In the most powerful country in the world, Kim states that 53 million people are without health care, and the majority of them are African American. He said it t is important for Black women to be able to access the programs and services available in order for there to be a reduction in the rate of mother to child transmissions of HIV/AIDS.

He said there is an even greater outrage.

“We can prevent it almost completely. In like 99.9 percent of cases we can prevent the mother from transmitting the disease to the child,” said Kim. “We have to create an environment where African-American men and women can make the best possible choices, and that does not exist today. Because of that, Black infants and children will continue to suffer until we present real solutions.”