HIV infection rate in the United States is likely to keep on skyrocketing if the nation continues to embrace the misconception that the disease is not a head-aching problem in their country, a renown American Medical Anthropologist and researcher cautions.
Susan Hunter (PhD) who is an independent Consultant of worlds organizations, particularly those connected to HIV/AIDS related projects says most Americans and even government officials think the epidemic has been controlled while the truth is the opposite.
“We are not immune, HIV/AIDS can affect anyone…. the country has the most severe HIV epidemic of any developed country” alerted Hunter during the public talk on AIDS in Africa held at the Universalit church of Bangor last Friday.
Using her book "AIDS in America" as a guide, Hunter said available reliable statistics show that in every 13 minutes another American becomes infected. Bad enough, some individuals get the disease out of ignorance and others do not even know the truth about the epidemic or their own sexuality.
At the forum which was also attended by nine Tanzanian journalist who are in US for journalism exchange program with University of Maine, the expert called her fellow Americans to understand that all conditions that contribute to epidemic or enormous scale in other countries are also present in their country.
She said US sex industry worth at least USD 20 billion a year, whereby the country is also the center of an international sex business that recruits US teens and traffic women from other countries to meet an over-growing demand.
According to Hunter, US has one-quarter of the world prisoners, and the place where by HIV rate is between five and seven times higher than that of general population.
“New York City alone has more HIV-infected drug users than many of countries” she explained adding that the profile of the typical American with AIDS has changed severely since the epidemic began.
Initially, homosexuality and drug use where the key driving factors, in the 1990s racism and structural violence against minority, gender violence and attacks on women status shifted the epidemic, spreading the disease to people with no identifiable risk.
The expert said, unlike in 30 years back were it was almost impossible to find an American with HIV, the disease is now more popular than big trademarks of supermarkets and other world’s famous business interprises.
“AIDS is the worst epidemic the world has ever known… it will soon become worst in the United States will ever known, yet it is virtually ignored by most of Americans, doctors and our government because it has deliberately idefied with problem population” asserted Hunter.
Nevertheless, she insisted the need for the American government to put a throttle-commitment to fight the disease, otherwise the future of the nation would be at risk. She said among the AIDS fighting drawbags in America is stigma whereas peopel can not talk about the impact of AIDS within their families.
Lately before Hunter’s presentation, Associate Professor Paul Grosswiler described her as the largely credited with bringing the plight of AIDS orphans to the attention of the United Nations.
He said the speaker is independent consultant to world health organizations, including UNAIDS, UNICEF and USAID, and author of five books on HIV-AIDS. Her books include "Black Death," selected by the London Times online as one of the top five books ever written on HIV-AIDS
Prof. Grosswiler further unveiled that, Hunter’s appearance was made possible by a USAID-University of Maine program, which is currently hosting nine visiting Tanzanian journalists learning about Western news gathering and reporting.
The journalists spend the majority of their time on the University of Maine campus, but also are visiting newsrooms around the state, and will visit Washington, D.C. before returning home. Prof. Grosswiler and assistant professor Mike Socolow of the Department of Communication and Journalism are leading the group.
The program, in its second year, is funded by USAID (United States Agency for International Development). Covering HIV-AIDS issues is a component of the program this year.
Hunter spent two days -- Thursday and Friday – strategizing with the visiting journalists about reporting on HIV-AIDS.
The event was also attended by nine Tanzanian journalists who are in US at University of Maine for exchange program, Dr. Hunter unveiled that By the guild of her study documented in her book, AIDS IN AMERICA (2006), Dr. Hunter said that more than one million Americans are affected with HIV, and half a million already died of AIDS.
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