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Group Focuses on slowing HIV rates in blacks
News-Gazette
Champaign, IL
03.02.01
By: Paul Wood, News-Gazette Staff Writer
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Two events set to make people aware of problem
CHAMPAIGN - Faced with startling increases in AIDS cases among
blacks, a local group is stepping up education efforts.
Once a disease of gay white males, the majority of Illinois residents
now being diagnosed with AIDS are black, according to figures from
the Illinois Department of Health.
While the number of HIV infections peaked in the mid-'90s for the
overall population, of the 1,781 AIDS cases reported to the department
last year, blacks constituted 59 percent of them.
Jacqueline Davis, director of the Champaign-Urbana African-American
HIV/AIDS Awareness Project, said her group is working hard to prepare
for the 12th annual Black Church Week of Prayer for the Healing
of AIDS.
"This is the active season. We're working with the national
organization, the Balm In Gilead from New York, to have a high profile
in the community," she said.
The group is holding the fifth annual Champaign-Urbana HIV/AIDS
Awareness Community Prayer Breakfast from 8:30 a.m. to noon Saturday
at Salem Baptist Church, 500 E. Park Ave., C.
At 3 p.m. Sunday, a Gospel music program will start at Alpha &
Omega Church of God in Christ, 400 W. Bradley Ave., C.
There's no charge for either event, but a collection will be taken
during the music program.
Davis, whose group was stated in 1995, said the public health community
has reached the black community as well in part because "African-Americans
tend to not want to deal this subject, and they don't want it make
known when they're affected."
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