Left: A protester demanding the United States Government divert military spending to HIV/AIDS research and treatment, holds a sign outside the U.S. consulate, near the site of the International AIDS Conference in Toronto, on Wednesday.   Right: An AIDS patient lies on her bed at the Tapologo hospice in Rustenburg, South Africa, on June 14. - Reuters Photos

TORONTO (Reuters):

HIV infections are rising in black men and women living in developed nations that have otherwise made strides against the disease, said participants at the 16th International AIDS Conference in Toronto.

"AIDS in America is a black disease no matter how you look at it, by gender or sexual orientation or age or socio-economic class or region in the country in which you live," said Phil Wilson, executive director of the Black AIDS Institute, at a press conference on Monday.

"Black people bear the brunt of this epidemic."

People of African and Caribbean descent - particularly heterosexual women and men who have sex with men - have higher HIV infection rates than the overall population in developed countries like Canada and the United States, said conference participants.

Blacks make up 13 per cent of the United States population, but represent an estimated 42 per cent of people living with HIV/AIDS. Ontarians of African and Caribbean descent make up less than five per cent of the population, but account for 14 per cent of those with HIV/AIDS and 19.5 per cent of new infections in 2004 in Ontario, a rise of 82 per cent in five years. Their HIV infection rate is almost 13 times the overall rate.

AIDS is the leading cause of death for African American women aged 25 to 34, and in 2003, 60 per cent of all American females living with HIV/AIDS were black. African American women make up 68 per cent of new HIV cases in the U.S.

Black women's fight

"If we, as black women in America, do not decide today and every day that AIDS is our face and fight, in 2020 there'll be no black women in America," said Grazell Howard, first vice-president of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women.

A study released by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in June 2005, showed that black men who have sex with men in the United States had HIV infection rates higher than in sub-Saharan Africa, at 46 per cent.

Another CDC study presented at the conference showed that while American high school students were overall engaging in less sexual behaviour that put them at risk for HIV infection since the early 1990s, decreases in sexual intercourse and increases in condom use in African American teenagers levelled off over the past few years, after progress throughout the early 1990s.

The study's findings showed that there may be a need to intensify prevention efforts in black and Hispanic adolescent populations in the United States, said the CDC's Dr. Laura Kann.

It's not only in the developing world that people die due to lack of access to treatment, said the Canadian Treatment Action Council. In the conference's host country, a variety of barriers stand in the way of treatment for HIV-positive immigrants, said Esther Tharao of the council.

Stigma - both in the general population and their own cultural communities - makes it hard for vulnerable populations to get care. Immigrants and refugees without residency status in Canada don't qualify for the country's public health care, and they face further difficulties due to differences in culture and language.

Strategy needed

"We need a Canadian strategy to support communities from countries where HIV is endemic, and we need funding to make it work," said Tharao in a statement.

Several conference activities focused on mobilising populations of African and Caribbean descent in the fight against HIV.

"For too long, our community has sat idly by as this epidemic has ravaged our families and claimed the lives of our brothers and sisters," said Cheryl Cooper, executive director of the National Council of Negro Women.

"We need to make some noise. Every day, everywhere we need to start by saying, I am fighting against HIV. If we take to the streets and the churches and we use all these platforms, we can beat this," said Maxine Waters, a representative from California.