The Rise of HIV Among Black Women

On Wednesday, April 13th York College’s Health Services hosted its annual Wellness Festival, once again they organized a great and informatic gathering in the atrium of the school. There was an abundance of informatic tables offering students a wide variety of health related issues from insurance too most importantly HIV testing.

The frightening factor is that many young girls and women are naïve to the fact that HIV is soaring among black women in the United States. In a recent study according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention out of all the women in the U.S. with HIV black women make up 67% of the total. More than 11,000 women, ages 13 and older, were diagnosed with AIDS in 2003, says the C.D.C.P.

I spoke to Karen Corrales who is an Outreach Coordinator for the Southeast Queens Clergy for Community Empowerment, Inc. (S.Q.C.C.E); she was very intuned with today’s concern of the growth of HIV/AIDS amongst black and Hispanic women. Corrales says, Just being a woman is a problem. Most cases come from their partners. Most African American and Hispanic men don’t want to use condoms, we trust them so we don’t use them.”

Corrales stresses the importance of awareness and knowledge. She says, “Go get tested people are afraid of just knowing, but you can live ten, fifteen, or twenty years with the virus. They have medicines they can use to maintain the disease and live a long life. But you should want to know.” She also believes that we are in a crisis situation she told me that there are many cases right in the Rockaway, Queens’s area and that the numbers are growing. Although Corrales is a professional in the field I also wanted the insight of our own York community.

I asked several ethnic women if they believed that women who are infected should bear children knowingly or unknowing. Jo Ann Glenn and english major replied, “ If a woman knows that she is HIV positive or has the actual virus, to become pregnant should not be a possibility. If she doesn’t know or becomes aware during her pregnancy, I think abortion would be an anwer.” Tania Breton a student and resident of Queens says, “I thinks it’s wrong to have children knowing that they will be positive. That’s so hard a thing to have, not to mention to geow up with.”