Project Reaches Out to County’s Blacks With Warning, Information About AIDS

An Orange County group kicked off a campaign Saturday to educate blacks about the deadly AIDS virus and how to avoid it.

The goal of the Black Community AIDS Program of Orange County is to reach the more than 40,000 blacks in the county.

“The thing about Orange County is, people say, ‘Are there black people here?’ ” said Ayida Mthembu, the program’s director. “The problem is blacks (in Orange County) are widely dispersed and not highly visible.”

The idea developed out of the Orange County Sickle Cell Program. Joseph Gatlin, director of that program, noticed a high ratio of blacks among AIDS victims. In Orange County, he said, 2% of the population is black, but 4% of the AIDS victims are black.

According to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta:

* 26% of those with AIDS are black.

* 67% of all heterosexuals with AIDS are black.

* 50% of all intravenous drug users with AIDS are black.

* 60% of women who contract AIDS through heterosexual contact are black.

“AIDS has not been thought to be a minority disease,” Mthembu said. “People were locked in on thinking it’s a gay disease. We’ve got to get the word out that it’s not. . . . The No. 1 cause (among blacks) could very well be unsafe sex practices, but we’ve got to deal with the drug thing, the gang thing and the poor education thing.”

Mthembu said the group plans to conduct a street outreach program in Orange County similar to the ones in New York and Los Angeles, where volunteers distribute bleach to drug users for cleaning their needles to prevent spreading the disease.

Program educators said they have already done some informal community work and have had the most success by targeting black churches in the county, Mthembu said.

“Ministers have been talking frankly with their congregations,” she said. “They told us they’re counseling people already because black people are dying from AIDS.”

Mthembu said the Black Community AIDS Program is similar to the Minority AIDS Project in Los Angeles. However, the Orange County group focuses only on blacks to help those who may be reluctant to participate in a program that is not directed specifically toward their ethnic background, she added.

The program is working with a budget of $150,000 that it received from the Office of AIDS of the state Department of Health Services. The program employs three full-time AIDS educators and one part-timer, Gatlin said.

“We plan to hold up for the duration of AIDS, so we’re looking at 10 years or even longer,” Gatlin said.