Stopping the spread

By George L. Jones (Contact) | Selma Times-Journal

Published Saturday, November 15, 2008

Selma AIR education specialist Cedric Whirry looks over recent results from HIV. With the aid of the United Way, Selma AIR helps educate people about HIV and AIDS in hopes of slowing the spread of the disease.

Editor’s note: This is a series of stories about the agencies supported by the Dallas County-Selma United Way. The United Way fund drive is under way and will conclude Dec. 31.

The staff at Selma AIR can’t say it any simpler: AIDS kills.

Selma AIR (AIDS Information and Referral) educates people in the Black Belt about HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and provides help for people who are infected.

The disease’s favorite prey is the uneducated. Cedric Wherry said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has shifted its major monetary focus in recent years from education to treatment of the approximately 750,000 Americans who have positively tested for HIV.

That, in his opinion, is a strategy that has serious repercussions.

“Putting all this emphasis on treatment almost goes against health 101,” said Wherry, education specialist for Selma AIR. “If you’re putting all this money into education and housing people and not into education, you get this influx of people with the disease.”

Part of Wherry’s job is to speak to middle and high school children and college students. He also makes home visits, all in the effort of trying to slow the numbers of new HIV cases.

It is estimated that an additional 250,000 people are living with HIV but don’t know it, according to statistics from the CDC.

Thirty-eight percent of people who die from AIDS in the U.S. and half the total people living with the virus are black.

For a region where black people account for about two thirds of the population, the Dallas County and the Black Belt are fertile killing grounds for the disease.

The United Way each year contributes money to Selma AIR to assist in its operations. The money varies according to the amount of total money raised in the United Way’s annual fund drive. Selma AIR Director Mel Prince said United Way contributed about $1,500 last year.

“The United Way provides us with income to help with our education program,” Prince said. “Cedric goes throughout the Black Belt and talks to students about the virus.”

The center is primarily funded through the Ryan White Program, named after a teenager who gained national attention after fighting and dying from the disease in 1990. The program donated nearly $2.2 billion toward HIV/AIDS in 2008, the highest amount in its 17-year history.

Selma AIR tests between 50-100 people each month and also provides services such as assistance with housing, transportation and medicine.

The disease affects every part of an infected person’s life and the lives of their families. That consideration is tough for people to adjust to.

“We take them to the doctor and dentist or help them with their bills. We’re here whenever or wherever necessary,” said Geraldine Pryor, chief resource assistant for Selma AIR. “A lot of people don’t want to rent to them, so there’s all kinds of things like that to consider.”