LAKEPORT — The Lake County Board of Supervisors adopted a proclamation on Nov. 23 designating December 2010 as AIDS Awareness Month in Lake County.
The intent of the designation, as stated in the proclamation, was to “increase awareness and understanding of HIV/AIDS, and to take part in local HIV/AIDS prevention activities and education programs to prevent the further spread of HIV/AIDS.”
The Community Care HIV/AIDS Program, a non-profit organization, requested the designation for the second consecutive year, according to Ken Young, program director at the CCHAP drop-in center in Clearlake.
“We need to get the message out to people,” Young told the BOS. He later added that HIV and AIDS are “a big problem in Lake County.”
Young told the BOS that his organization does not know the number of people affected in the county. The proclamation stated several worldwide statistics, including that 39.5 million people are HIV-positive, including 37 million adults and 2.3 million children under the age of 5.
Young told the BOS that CCHAP is the only non-profit organization in Lake County to offer services to people diagnosed with HIV or AIDS. Young said the services include medical intervention support, social support, case management and the drop-in center.
The county”s department of public health does provide services to people diagnosed with AIDS, through the AIDS Drug Assistance Program, according to Lake County Public Health officer Dr. Karen Tait.
The department used to offer free confidential HIV and AIDS testing to county residents but that program recently lost funding, Tait said. “Unfortunately,” she said, “we no longer can offer confidential testing.”
The county testing program lost its funding as a result of the state”s 2010/11 budget cuts, Tait said, and staff administered the last confidential test in June.
Tait said citizens hoping to receive confidential testing could still do so through private medical insurance agencies.
Lake County also used to receive state funding for its education program, The HIV/AIDS Education, Prevention and Planning Project, but that funding was cut during the 2009/10 fiscal year, Tait said.
Young said he was frustrated by the county”s current lack of testing, though he understood that state cutbacks affect a wide variety of programs. “It”s pretty appalling if you can”t get tested at this department of health,” he said.
Young told the BOS that a major problem with the “pandemic” is that people who may have HIV or AIDS have not been tested.
The BOS proclamation came the day before the Associated Press reported that Pope Benedict XVI made comments to a German journalist supporting the use of condoms by Catholics to help prevent the spread of infectious diseases such as HIV and AIDS.
The AP report said Benedict is quoted in the journalist”s new book, Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times, as saying that condom use by infected individuals in order to protect their partners would be a moral and responsible action.
Benedict”s statements specifically address the use of condoms by prostitutes and do not address the use of condoms by married couples or as a method of birth control, the AP reported.
Today is World AIDS Day throughout the world.
Young said that the BOS has shown how important and relevant HIV and AIDS are in Lake County by designating the entire month for spreading awareness.
The CCHAP will host an event on Dec. 5 at 2 p.m. in honor of AIDS awareness. The AIDS Celebration of Life and Remembrance will be at the Clearlake Oaks Community Methodist Church.
Contact Jeremy Walsh at jwalsh@record-bee.com or call him at 263-5636, ext. 37.
