County Steps Up Efforts to Bolster AIDS Awareness : Health: An education campaign for about 500 managers and an early intervention program are among upcoming projects.

Amid the rising death toll inflicted by AIDS and the inexorable spread of the disease, officials say there is reason for hope in Ventura County.

In coming months, officials and advocates are set to launch an unprecedented series of programs and projects to beef up AIDS education and services.

On Dec. 1, county officials plan to unveil a campaign to educate about 500 county government managers about AIDS and HIV, the virus that causes the disease. The program, believed to be the first of its kind in the state, is designed to heighten awareness of AIDS issues in the workplace while serving as a model for private employers.

In another effort, the county is teaming with AIDS Care to develop an early intervention program aimed at delivering medical care and other services to people who are HIV positive but who have not developed full-blown AIDS.

And due out in December is the county’s first comprehensive assessment of AIDS-related needs and resources, followed by the release of a countywide AIDS prevention plan examining a variety of areas, including strategies for continuing to do battle with the virus.

Taken together, these developments reflect a widespread belief that there still is much that can be done about AIDS in Ventura County.

And during this, AIDS Awareness Month, the progress inspires hope that this is not yet a county overrun by the disease, nor is it a community that has given up on the idea of stamping it out.

“These are all indications that the awareness is there, that the attention is there and that people are realizing that AIDS is something that is with us, it’s a huge problem and it’s growing,” said Doug Green, executive director of AIDS Care, a countywide nonprofit group for people infected and affected by HIV.

“But that said,” Green added, “I think there is still a lot of work to do in terms of bringing people around.”

To be sure, the progress has been painfully slow. Many of those who have spent years battling AIDS acknowledge their frustration at what they perceive to be a “three steps forward, two steps back” approach to the disease.

Last week, for example, after members of the Ventura County HIV/AIDS Advisory Committee settled on a Dec. 1 kickoff for the county’s AIDS education program, they had to turn their attention to rescuing the AIDS Outreach Intervention Team from meltdown.

The county program--which targets intravenous drug users, the second largest AIDS patient group behind gay or bisexual men--was in its third year when federal officials announced that it would no longer be funded.

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Worse yet, federal officials took back $245,000 of grant money that county officials had been planning to use to fund the program for a fourth year.

The program was scheduled to shut down by September, but county officials have won an extension to Jan. 31.

“We’re working closely with the county’s public health department to look at possible ways of restructuring the program,” said Steve Kaplan, the county’s director of alcohol and drug programs. “This is an important population to do outreach to and we need to find a way to continue to do that. I’m just really concerned that if this program goes away, the people we’ve been seeing are no longer going to get seen.”

AIDS advocates point to other setbacks as well. They note that there are still only two community-based organizations--AIDS Care and Christopher House--dedicated solely to providing services to people with AIDS and HIV. And they point out that most services for AIDS patients are based in west Ventura County, resulting in a huge gap in services on the county’s east end.

Furthermore, advocates are deeply disturbed by what they view as a movement to silence the voice of AIDS education, most notably demonstrated by the Ventura County Board of Education’s recent decision to suspend the use of AIDS Care and Planned Parenthood speakers at teacher-training seminars.

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“There’s still so much ignorance in the county, I think that’s the biggest problem we’re facing,” said Wade Powers, 24, of Thousand Oaks who tested HIV-positive two years ago.

“I think this county is about 10 years behind other counties in terms of HIV education and prevention,” said Powers, who views even the most recent developments as promising but late. “It’s a start, and you’ve got to start somewhere. I just wish they would have started a lot sooner.”

That wish is shared by plenty of others who have looked on in horror as AIDS has taken its toll.

Between 1982 and the middle of last month, a total of 644 Ventura County residents were diagnosed with the disease, according to county records. Of those, 428 have died.

Moreover, state officials estimate that there are now between 900 and 1,200 cases of HIV in the county. Health officials put that estimate as high as 3,000 cases.

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In recent years, women and Latinos have come to represent a growing proportion of new AIDS cases. But by far, most of those with acquired immune deficiency syndrome in Ventura County are gay or bisexual men.

Doug Halter is among them. The 35-year-old Ventura resident tested positive for HIV in 1987. His partner, Randy Morrison, tested positive at the same time.

“I, like a lot of other people, never thought AIDS would impact me,” said Halter, a 1982 graduate of UC Santa Barbara. “By most standards, I wasn’t sexually promiscuous. I didn’t party hard. I don’t do drugs. I had met my partner at the end of 1984 and we were in a monogamous relationship. I never thought twice about that. It was denial.”

But when his partner got sick, the reality of AIDS hit home. In the summer of 1990, Morrison lost 40 pounds and couldn’t walk. During one hospital bout with pneumonia, Halter said, nurses refused to bring food to Morrison or change his bedsheets.

Morrison died in December, 1990, at the age of 26.

“I was in shock, I really felt like I didn’t want to live anymore,” Halter said. “It seemed like the whole world started dying. Of course, it was just my world.”

Faced with his own mortality, Halter got busy living.

He started working out and making it a priority to get enough sleep. He left his sales job a year ago and focused his energy on constructing houses on a Ventura hillside, partly as a way of generating income and partly as a way of building something that would be around long after he was gone.

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About 14 months ago, he said he was one of the first 50 people in the nation to start taking an experimental drug, a protease inhibitor, that interrupts the life cycle of the virus that causes AIDS.

Since then, his T-cell count has rebounded from about 30 to 177.

“I do believe in fate, I believe as long as I have a purpose here I’m going to make it,” Halter said. “Right now, I hope the rest of the world learns by how we have dealt with this plague and how the gay community has been decimated by it.”

If new programs and projects are any measure, then Ventura County is waking up.

Last month, a consortium of agencies throughout the county teamed with schools to do a peer education project for about 30 college and high school students. The program was designed to train students in HIV prevention and other issues so that they can be mentors to their peers.

Looking ahead, the Ventura County Community Foundation is in the running for a $100,000 grant from the Washington-based National AIDS Fund. Of that sum, $75,000 would have to be matched by local contributions, meaning a potential of $150,000 available to support local AIDS programs.

“We see this as an incredible opportunity for the community, and another vehicle for the community to get involved in this very important issue,” said Kate McLean, the foundation’s president.

Those who occupy the trenches in Ventura County’s battle against AIDS are keenly aware of their successes at this time of uncertain government funding. But they say it is no accident that such attention is being focused on this area.

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“There are a number of good things happening,” said Diane Seyl, the county’s AIDS coordinator. “I think at least some of the money has come into this county with the idea that it is a community not overrun by AIDS and let’s see what kind of planning can be put into the process so that when the numbers increase we’ll be ready for it instead of trying to play catch-up like the big cities are doing.”

In that same vein, the war against AIDS is constantly getting new soldiers. Like Patricia Navarro of Simi Valley, who enlisted after her son, Raymond, died five years ago of AIDS complications at the age of 26.

“I became involved basically by going to meetings and trying to get a feel for what was happening,” she said. “It took me awhile to figure out that the biggest problem in Ventura County is that everybody is hiding. It’s frustrating to have to convince people that this is a worthy cause and that if you bring issues into the public spotlight . . . we might be able to take away some of that stigma.”

Navarro, 51, now sits on the Ventura County HIV/AIDS Advisory Committee, and chairs the public policy committee of the Ventura County HIV/AIDS Task Force.

She has become a vocal proponent of AIDS causes, advocating for more programs and more money to fund them.

“It gets frustrating because there is so much to do. I see so much that needs to be done but I can’t do it,” she said. “But you’ve got to stay in there, you’ve got to keep fighting. I have to do it, not so much in memory of my child but in honor of him.”

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The Toll of a Deadly Virus

Between 1982 and the middle of last month, a total of 644 Ventura County residents were diagnosed with AIDS. Of those, 428 have died. (see newspaper for chart)

Source: Ventura County HIV/AIDS Task Force