The San Juan Health Department has created a program to educate Puerto Rican seniors about their risk for contracting HIV, reports the Miami Herald (miamiherald.com, 1/28).
The program, called Golden Force, hopes to tackle the growing number of Puerto Ricans aged 60 and above who are becoming infected with HIV, due in part to seniors’ misperceptions that they aren’t at risk, according to the Miami Herald.
For the year ending in September 2007, 238 new cases of HIV were reported in Puerto Rico among people aged 60 or older, up 25 percent from the previous year.
“We realized a number of our viejitos were starting to get sick,” said Luis Martínez Suárez, medical director the San Juan AIDS clinic, which runs Golden Force. “We knew we needed to start paying attention to that age group, taking the message of prevention to seniors.”
Martínez Suárez said that drugs like Viagra and Cialis make it possible for older men to have sex well into their 90s. This trend, combined with mistaken beliefs that only gay men and injection drug users can contract HIV, has contributed to the rise in HIV among the elderly.
Golden Force hopes to tackle the epidemic by reaching out to seniors at retirement homes and local fairs.
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Beth Benne, RN, is HIV negative, but
the virus has impacted her life. She currently supervises a biannual HIV/AIDS awareness week as
the director of the student health center at Pierce College, a
community commuter school in Woodland Hills, California.
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Overheard in the Women's Forum
"I recently met a guy who is negative. I did tell him about my status and he decided to kiss me anyway (we didn't go further than that). But a day later, he called and said that he actually had a mouth ulcer that time when we kissed and he was very worried. Asked if he can get the virus from me that way. For that moment, I felt so insulted and yet I felt so bad. It was my first time having a contact with a "negative" guy."
