Latinos, Women Lead Percentage Rise in New County AIDS Cases : Health: In both groups, the figure more than doubled during the past 12 months. Drugs and a lack of education are blamed in part.

The number of new AIDS cases in Ventura County increased by 57% during the past year, with women and Latinos representing a growing proportion of these new cases, health officials said Monday.

The number of county residents who were newly diagnosed with acquired immune deficiency syndrome increased from 65 in May, 1994, to 102 last month, officials said.

The most notable findings in the county survey were the increasing numbers of women and Latinos who had contracted AIDS, now the leading cause of death nationwide among people ages 25 to 44.

In both groups, the number of AIDS cases more than doubled, the survey found. Last May, five women were reported newly infected, but last month the figure was 12. The number of new cases among Latinos rose from 19 to 40 in the same period.

“This is a national and state trend, with women and people of color experiencing the fastest-growing number of AIDS cases,” said Dr. Elizabeth Trebow, a county public health official who tracks AIDS cases.

As of April 29, a total of 506 people had been diagnosed with AIDS in Ventura County since 1982, when such data was first collected. Of those, 324 have died.

“Education and prevention are still the best way we know to stop the spread of AIDS,” Trebow said. “There is no cure.”

Although homosexual and bisexual men still account for the majority of the county’s AIDS patients, she said, new diagnoses of the disease among women are now increasing at a more rapid rate than those among men.

During the past year, 12% of the men and 41% of the women newly reported with AIDS said they had contracted the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, through heterosexual sex, health officials said. It is estimated that between 900 and 1,200 of the county’s residents are HIV-infected.

“What we’re seeing is a shift in these new cases,” Trebow said. “We’re seeing the number of gay males [infected with AIDS] leveling off as far as new cases, whereas these other groups are seeing an increase, especially among women.”

More women are contracting AIDS from men who are using intravenous drugs or are not telling the women about their sexual relations with others, Trebow said.

The increase in AIDS cases among Latinos is largely attributed to a lack of education about the disease “and a good deal of denial in the Latino community about men who have sex with other men,” she said.

Although education and prevention remain the best weapon against the deadly disease, county school officials are caught in an emotionally charged debate over whether AIDS education should be included in the curriculum.

A majority of the trustees on the County Board of Education voted in March to ban Planned Parenthood and an AIDS patients support group from participating in sex education workshops for teachers. Board members said they believe that instruction about AIDS and other sex education issues, like the use of condoms, should be left to the family.

But Doug Green, director of AIDS Care of Ventura, said that schools have a vital role to play in helping to control the spread of the disease.

“It’s a real critical time for us as a community-based organization to be out educating young people, especially young women, about the risks of HIV infection,” Green said. “Without developing programs to build knowledge . . . among young people I think we’re going to see the numbers [of AIDS cases] continue to increase.”