Aids Administration

WASHINGTON - The number of new gonorrhea infections in Maryland has dropped by half in the last decade, from 24,132 cases diagnosed in 1987 to 11,316 in 1996.While health officials cannot point to any one cause for the decline, they said it is at least partly attributable to the fear of another disease - AIDS - and the safe-sex message that has come with it."I really think the predominant reason for the decline in gonorrhea cases is the prevention effort related to AIDS," said Arthur Thacher, Prince George's County's health officer.

Maryland will create a housing information service for people infected with the virus that causes AIDS, under a $976,800 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.HUD Secretary Henry G. Cisneros announced the grant yesterday, along with $7 million in awards to 10 other cities and states.The Maryland grant will go to the state's AIDS Administration and will be used to give notice of available public and private housing on a toll-free phone line and on the Internet.The funds will be administered by a private, nonprofit group, the Low Income Housing Information Service.

Gov. Parris N. Glendening yesterday named Dr. Liza Solomon, a public health researcher and longtime advocate for AIDS patients, to run the office responsible for containing the epidemic and serving the afflicted.The appointment marks the first time that the director of the state AIDS Administration has come squarely from the activist community.Over the years, Dr. Solomon has fought former Gov. William Donald Schaefer's efforts to register the names of people who test positive for the virus that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome -- saying it would violate privacy rights and scare people from getting care.

Heads bent over desks, expressions intent, about 25 college students are discussing negotiating skills. They're talking about diplomacy. Balance of power. Tactics. Assertion.This isn't International Relations 101. This is about relations of an entirely different sort. The topic for discussion is: If you choose to have sex, how do you persuade a sexual partner to use a condom?These University of Maryland Baltimore County students are learning how to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, including the virus that causes AIDS.

State officials believe Baltimore's Health Department has failed to track accurately the AIDS epidemic.Unless the number of AIDS cases is recorded, the city and the state stand to lose federal money for treatment and care programs, Maryland AIDS Administration officials said yesterday."

The Maryland General Assembly is flirting again with legislation that would compromise the privacy rights of people with AIDS. The state government says it wants mandatory testing of certain populations, particularly health-care workers, to protect the public and to help people who are infected get the treatment they need.Virtually every medical and scientific authority to have an opinion on the subject, including the federal Centers for Disease Control, says that mandatory testing will not achieve those goals.

A forum on AIDS among blacks and Hispanics last night presented statistics from 1991 showing that, for the first time ever in Baltimore County, the number of acquired immune deficiency syndrome cases among minority people exceeded the number of cases among whites.The Minority AIDS Forum was attended by about 100 local black and Hispanic leaders. Their stated goal is stemming the spread of the disease among minorities, largely by establishing community-based AIDS awareness programs.The program at the Liberty Family Resource Center in Randallstown was sponsored by the county Department of Health's AIDS Division and the AIDS Administration of the state's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

A forum on AIDS among blacks and Hispanics has presented statistics from 1991 showing that, for the first time ever in Baltimore County, the number of acquired immune deficiency syndrome cases among minority people exceeded the number of cases among whites.The Minority AIDS Forum was attended last night by about 100 local black and Hispanic leaders. Their stated goal is stemming the spread of the disease among minorities, largely by establishing community-based AIDS awareness programs.The program at the Liberty Family Resource Center in Randallstown was sponsored by the AIDS division of the county Department of Health and the AIDS administration of the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

AIDS cases among Maryland women are rising steadily, particularly among intravenous drug users, according to preliminary figures from the state AIDS Administration.Overall, 655 AIDS cases were reported in Maryland during 1990. But Dr. Audrey Rogers, chief epidemiologist for the state AIDS Administration, said the final figure probably will match orexceed last year's total of 761 when doctors finish reporting.Women accounted for 19 percent of the 1990 cases. Since th government began keeping AIDS records in 1981, 459 women have been diagnosed with acquired immune deficiency syndrome in Maryland.

Over a three-year period, Maryland has registered HIV-infection levels for childbearing women that are among the highest in the United States, says the state health department's AIDS Administration.Only three other states -- New York, New Jersey and Florida -- and the District of Columbia, have HIV-infection rates for childbearing women that exceed Maryland's.While the dramatic rise in rates seen between 1988 and 1989 was not repeated in 1990, the number of childbearing women infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)

WASHINGTON - - In a city ravaged by the highest rate of AIDS cases in the nation, the D.C. Health Department paid millions to nonprofit groups that delivered substandard services or failed to account for any work at all, even as sick people searched for care or died waiting. More than $1 million in AIDS money went to a housing group whose ailing boarders sometimes struggled without electricity, gas or food. A supervisor said she was ordered to create records for ghost employees. About $400,000 was paid to a nonprofit organization launched by a man who once ran one of the District's largest cocaine rings, for a promised job-training center that has never opened.

Despite struggling with one of the nation's highest AIDS rates, Maryland is facing a 40 percent reduction this year in federal support to track infections - a cut that officials say could have a ripple effect on aid to treat the indigent. The cut, from $1.8 million last year to about $1 million in calendar year 2008, eliminates funding for the state to perform tests that discern whether someone testing positive for HIV was infected recently or years ago, according to the Maryland AIDS Administration.

Baltimore's health commissioner and advocates for people with HIV and AIDS are concerned that shuffling budget money at the state AIDS Administration could leave the city without positions vital to help stop the spread of the virus and could force people who depend on life-sustaining drugs to do without them. The state AIDS Administration is confronting proposed budget changes beginning July 1 that could eliminate 33 employees, some of whom collect data on the prevalence of HIV and AIDS cases.

Acknowledging that his office has done a poor job of counting the number of people in Baltimore infected with the virus that causes AIDS, the city's health commissioner has turned responsibility for that task over to state health officials. "I'm not confident we're doing it adequately," Peter L. Beilenson told a City Council committee last night. "If they can do it better, count the cases better, it's no skin off our back. " Beilenson's comments were made during a public hearing on the spread of human immunodeficiency virus, which causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome, that was called by the council's Housing, Health and Environment Committee.

WASHINGTON - The number of new gonorrhea infections in Maryland has dropped by half in the last decade, from 24,132 cases diagnosed in 1987 to 11,316 in 1996.While health officials cannot point to any one cause for the decline, they said it is at least partly attributable to the fear of another disease - AIDS - and the safe-sex message that has come with it."I really think the predominant reason for the decline in gonorrhea cases is the prevention effort related to AIDS," said Arthur Thacher, Prince George's County's health officer.

Maryland will create a housing information service for people infected with the virus that causes AIDS, under a $976,800 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.HUD Secretary Henry G. Cisneros announced the grant yesterday, along with $7 million in awards to 10 other cities and states.The Maryland grant will go to the state's AIDS Administration and will be used to give notice of available public and private housing on a toll-free phone line and on the Internet.The funds will be administered by a private, nonprofit group, the Low Income Housing Information Service.

Gov. Parris N. Glendening yesterday named Dr. Liza Solomon, a public health researcher and longtime advocate for AIDS patients, to run the office responsible for containing the epidemic and serving the afflicted.The appointment marks the first time that the director of the state AIDS Administration has come squarely from the activist community.Over the years, Dr. Solomon has fought former Gov. William Donald Schaefer's efforts to register the names of people who test positive for the virus that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome -- saying it would violate privacy rights and scare people from getting care.

Heads bent over desks, expressions intent, about 25 college students are discussing negotiating skills. They're talking about diplomacy. Balance of power. Tactics. Assertion.This isn't International Relations 101. This is about relations of an entirely different sort. The topic for discussion is: If you choose to have sex, how do you persuade a sexual partner to use a condom?These University of Maryland Baltimore County students are learning how to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, including the virus that causes AIDS.

State officials believe Baltimore's Health Department has failed to track accurately the AIDS epidemic.Unless the number of AIDS cases is recorded, the city and the state stand to lose federal money for treatment and care programs, Maryland AIDS Administration officials said yesterday."

A forum on AIDS among blacks and Hispanics last night presented statistics from 1991 showing that, for the first time ever in Baltimore County, the number of acquired immune deficiency syndrome cases among minority people exceeded the number of cases among whites.The Minority AIDS Forum was attended by about 100 local black and Hispanic leaders. Their stated goal is stemming the spread of the disease among minorities, largely by establishing community-based AIDS awareness programs.The program at the Liberty Family Resource Center in Randallstown was sponsored by the county Department of Health's AIDS Division and the AIDS Administration of the state's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.