MISS. - 25 YEARS OF AIDS

Robin Webb doesn't dodge tough questions about AIDS. He's a veteran.

Webb, 49, of Jackson has been carrying the AIDS virus for the last 15
years after contracting the disease from what he said was "some
sexual activity" in the 1980s.

"I remember those horrible early days in the 1980s when this (AIDS)
affected almost everyone I knew," said Webb. "So many people died, so
many suffered and all of us were treated like outcasts."

Today, Webb manages his illness as a chronic disease utilizing drugs
that cost over $3,000 a month. "I'm on Medicaid and right now I'm
getting what I need to fight the disease."

Webb, who has a job in Jackson and also works with other HIV/AIDS
patients, said that the 25th anniversary of the identification of the
AIDS virus this month produced a singular observation.

"There's an opportunity now for people with AIDS to live productive
lives if we can get rid of the stigma and continue to make the drugs
available," Webb said. "In Mississippi, people of faith are so good
to pray for people suffering overseas and work to help them. But
there are people among us suffering every day with AIDS and many turn
them away and try to pretend that they don't exist. It's just sad."

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that
since 1981, 6,032 Mississippians have contracted AIDS and 3,033 have
died from it.

Mississippi's death rate from AIDS is 7 per 100,000 residents, while
the national AIDS death rate is 4.7.

At least 3,076 Mississippians are currently living with AIDS today,
the federal health agency reports. Federal statistics say most
Mississippians with AIDS are male, black and either homosexual or
involved in injection drug use or both.

The state Department of Health says that as many as 8,330
Mississippians were living with AIDs as of December 2005 and that a
cumulative total of 11,725 Mississippians had been diagnosed as HIV-positive.

But the fastest-growing demographic in AIDS in Mississippi is that of
black females.

Dr. Gary Puckrein, executive director of the Washington-based
National Minority Health Foundation, told The Clarion-Ledger in April
that black people in Mississippi make up 70 percent of the new
HIV/AIDS cases and that black women make up 49 percent.

But Joy Sennett, director of communicable diseases with the state
Department of Health, said there is new hope for all AIDS patients
that didn't exist 25 years ago."

AIDS can now be viewed as a chronic illness for those who have access
to treatment, but patients must be tested and become engaged in care
as quickly as possible to participate in this tremendous benefit,"
said Sennett.

AIDS was first identified as what some social and religious
commentators called "the gay plague" or "GRID" (gay-related immune
deficiency) when doctors in California began to encounter a new
disease that attacked sexually active homosexual men with deadly results.

The first case was reported by the CDC in June 1981. Some 25 years
later the disease would come to be called Acquired Immune Deficiency
Syndrome (AIDS) and would be linked to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

The legacy of HIV/AIDS after 25 years is startling. Worldwide,
HIV/AIDS has claimed the lives of 25 million people and almost 70
million are believed to be infected, according to the CDC.

Despite the high AIDS death rate in Mississippi, the state is one of
only 11 states that do not teach the federal Sexually Transmitted
Disease/HIV/AIDS education curriculum in the public schools. Local
school districts may override state requirements on sex education
topics, but state law requires that such teaching "must stress
abstinence" and must not include materials that "contradict the
required component."

Three of four Mississippians who have contracted AIDS are male, but
the fastest-growing AIDS diagnosis category is females.

Some 55 percent of Mississippians with AIDS got it from male-to-male
sex or injection drug use, but one-in-five contracted it from
heterosexual contact.

Despite billions of dollars spent in worldwide research by some of
the world's brightest scientists, no vaccine for the Human
immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS is on the horizon and
HIV/AIDS has now reached pandemic levels worldwide.

Yet, as with most public health battles in Mississippi, the war
against AIDS is being waged with mostly federal tax dollars.

"The HIV and AIDS surveillance program began in Mississippi in 1985,"
said Sennett. "However, the (state's) HIV prevention program did not
begin until 1988. It was mainly responsible for providing educational
information to the public."

Mississippi primarily uses a combination of about an annual $22.3
million in federal program funding to treat AIDS patients, assist
those living with AIDS and for prevention and education programs
designed to stop the spread of the disease.

Mississippi received a total of $13.4 million in so-called "Ryan
White" funds in 2004 - funds named in honor of a young Indiana AIDS
victim in the 1980s who drew worldwide attention when he became
infected during part of his treatment for hemophilia. The youth was
diagnosed with AIDS in 1984 and died of the disease in 1990.

The Ryan White Comprehensive CARE Act provides funding to cities,
states and other public or private nonprofit entities to develop,
organize, coordinate and operate systems for the delivery of health
care and support services to medically under served individuals and
families affected by HIV disease.

"There are also new prevention interventions to assist those already
infected from infecting others, avoid acquiring additional HIV
viruses, and reduce the likelihood of harming themselves through the
use of injecting drugs, etc.," Sennett said.

Sennett's statistic's suggest that Robin Webb is one of some 2,897
HIV-positive residents in Hinds, Madison and Rankin counties.

"I feel fortunate to be getting the drugs I need," said Webb. "I know
so many AIDS patients aren't and I wonder if anyone cares about them."