Attendees form a human AIDS ribbon at the U.S. Conference on AIDS last week in Ft. Lauderdale. (Photo courtesy NMAC)
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Sep 26, 2008  |  By: JUAN CARLOS RODRIGUEZ  | COMMENTS |   |  

Minorities, young people, women and gay men continue to be in the eye of the storm as the AIDS epidemic approaches its third devastating decade.

This was the prevailing thought among most of the 4,000 attendees at the 12th annual U.S. Conference on AIDS held in Fort Lauderdale last week.

In the four-day spree of panels and workshops, dinners and cocktail parties, HIV/AIDS advocates spoke about strategies in battling the increase in HIV infection rates in the US, including the need to establish a comprehensive national AIDS strategy.

“It makes a whole lot of sense,” said Tom Liberti, chief of the Florida Department of Health Bureau on HIV/AIDS. “If we require other countries to have one, we should have one too.”

According to CDC reports, an estimated 56,000 people contract HIV each year, with a majority of new infections among men who have sex with men, especially young men who engage in “high risk behaviors.”

“The need for open and honest dialogue about the impact of HIV/AIDS on gay men and MSM has never been more pressing,” said Paul Kawata, executive director of the National Minority AIDS Council, sponsor of the four-day event that took place in Fort Lauderdale last week. “The rates of HIV/AIDS are rising especially among gay men and MSM of color.”

Kawata read a statement Republican presidential candidate John McCain during the closing reception. A statement by Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama was also read on Saturday.

McCain pledged to bring together non-profit and government agencies to “promote prevention efforts, encourage testing, targeting communities with high infection rates.”

Obama, meanwhile, committed to developing a comprehensive national AIDS strategy, as well as fight the “stigma that is too often tied to homophobia” that surrounds the disease.

Advocates and medical professionals also addressed HIV rates and risks among women of color, and alarming trends associated with the former inmates who leave prison newly infected.

Transmission among transgender populations, and among people aged 50 and older, continue to show rising infection rates as well. On the treatment front, medical professionals led seminars about managing escalating health care costs and patient loads, while dealing with no federal funding increases for the last eight years.