SOUTH FLORIDA – It has not made the headlines in some time, but it is important to be reminded, as a community that HIV-AIDS never went away.
Information has come to me that not only are certain communities facing what is a major crisis but that the Caribbean American community is at the center of that crisis.
In Broward County for example, in every 100,000 of population, 1,224 persons are HIV positive.
It is not really a stretch to assume that a number of those more than a thousand are residing right inside of our Caribbean-American community.
It is also happening at a time when a number of other dynamics are at work.
Women across our community are openly expressing the loneliness they are experiencing.
Our men on the other hand are seeking out assistance from little pills so they can have big fun with women of all ages.
In the early days of the epidemic in South Florida, many if not most of us knew someone who died from AIDS.
Some of us have allowed ourselves to be convinced that this has changed.
Yet, what is saddest of this on-going situation is that since those scary days of the late 1980’s there have been so many scientific developments in treating HIV infection that people with the infection are able to live full and productive lives.
Yet, as it will happen, people in our Caribbean-American community are not reaching out for the free treatment which is available.
This needs to change!!
Photo Credit: Leroy “Dreamy” Riley
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