AIDS Team to Seek Out Those at Risk : Health: County outreach workers hit the streets today to test and counsel drug abusers, their sex partners and others. The program’s first year will focus on Oxnard and Ventura.

An aggressive new plan to curb the spread of AIDS in Ventura County begins today as outreach workers take to the streets in search of drug abusers, their sex partners and others at risk of contracting the disease.

On-site AIDS counseling and testing will be available for the first time in the county through the $1-million, federally funded HIV Outreach Intervention Team, said Danette Banyai, county public health nurse.

“We’re going into communities we haven’t been able to reach,” said Banyai, who works for the county’s Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs. “We’re looking for people who are abusing substances and taking chances of being infected that they might not even be aware of.”

With its emphasis on education and testing, the program is one way that the county is responding to the increased incidence of acquired immune deficiency syndrome and human immunodeficiency virus.

Banyai, who supervises the outreach team, and four counselors will scour targeted areas in two oversize vans equipped for AIDS testing and counseling. The first year of the three-year program will concentrate on communities in Oxnard and Ventura.

Health officials say 1,000 to 3,000 Ventura County residents are infected with HIV. The numbers are only estimates because physicians are not required to report positive test results to health officials.

“Our hope is to force people to take a close look at what they’re doing and change their behavior in a way that could save lives,” Banyai said.

In another attempt to stem the spread of the disease, a task force on women and AIDS meets for the first time today.

Health-care providers and social-service agencies from around the county will tackle the issue, taking stock of services available and forming a collective plan for prevention and education, said Diane Seyl, county AIDS coordinator for public health services.

The fifth-leading cause of death among women of childbearing age in the United States, AIDS has claimed the lives of 17 women in Ventura County since the first case of female infection was reported in 1987.

“We’ve just been going along like this is business as usual,” Seyl said. “Maybe there’s something we can do to inform and empower” women.

AIDS and HIV services provided by the county include an immunology clinic, a federally funded program to provide low-income patients with medication, a case management program to help patients get jobs and housing, HIV counseling and a task force that brings AIDS workers from various fields together.

In addition, the community-based HIV Care Consortium provides funding for treatment. AIDS Care, a private nonprofit agency, offers support groups, housing and networking for people with AIDS and HIV-related illnesses. And Christopher House, the county’s first shelter for homeless AIDS patients, is expected to open in the fall.

Despite the services, infection rates continue to grow.

There were 64 new AIDS cases in Ventura County in 1992, the highest annual total since the county began tracking the disease 10 years ago. Altogether, the county has recorded 330 AIDS cases and 207 deaths.

The county’s immunology clinic, which treats people with AIDS and HIV, saw 720 HIV-positive people in the first 10 months of 1992, the most recent period for which figures are available, said Dr. John Prichard, who runs the clinic.

“We’re busier all the time,” he said. “We get three or four new (HIV) patients a week.”

Sylvia La Bonte, an HIV-infected mother who has spoken extensively on AIDS, called estimates of HIV infection rates in the county conservative.

“We won’t really know how many people are infected until we get out there and educate people and get them tested,” said La Bonte, 27, who lives in Simi Valley.

La Bonte said she tested positive in 1988, although she suspects that she was infected three years earlier. She has a 7-year-old son who has tested negative.

“The main concern is denial, especially among women,” she said. “Nothing has changed in their behavior. They just don’t care.”

La Bonte would like to see AIDS information volunteers stationed “in gyms, health spas, beauty salons, every place where women congregate” to spread the word. Classes on AIDS would be required at every school and business, she said.

“Until that happens,” she said, “people aren’t going to take it seriously.”

Health-care providers agree that it is time to pay closer attention and commit more resources to prevention.

“Although people are becoming more aware, there are still plenty who don’t know that what they’re doing is a high-risk behavior,” said Emma Dawson, an outreach worker on the county’s HIV prevention team.

“Ideally, we want to empower people to make lifestyle changes as simple as wearing a condom or using a clean needle, so they will no longer be at risk,” Dawson said.

About two-thirds of the county’s AIDS victims are homosexual men, but women and intravenous-drug users are increasingly at risk, county officials said.

“At this point, the only weapon we have in the fight against AIDS is education, particularly for women,” said Edie Brown, executive director of AIDS Care. “Women need to be taught assertiveness and negotiation skills. They need to learn to say no to unprotected sex.”

AIDS Care holds weekly support groups for women who are HIV-positive or living with someone who is. Brown frequently takes her safe-sex message to audiences of both genders at local organizations.

“I tell people, ‘If you are having unprotected sex, you are at risk’ ” she said. “I don’t care if you’ve been married 20 years. That’s not an insurance policy.”