AIDS Programs Need Bolstering, Grand Jury Urges

SANTA ANA — Health officials should establish an Orange County Office of AIDS to raise awareness of the disease and do a better job of coordinating education and prevention programs, the county grand jury recommended Wednesday.

The office, which would be operated by the county’s Health Care Agency, could pull together all the diverse programs that work to detect AIDS, treat patients, reach out to at-risk populations and educate the general public, said Mary Ann Salamida, chair of the Human Services Committee of the grand jury.

“They are doing a fine job,” Salamida said of the health agency. “But with an Office of AIDS, efforts would be more visible.”

Penny Weismuller, the Health Care Agency’s manager for disease control, says she is happy to have the grand jury’s support but that much of what the panel recommends already is being done.

Years ago, the agency named an AIDS coordinator and that office has grown into an entire HIV unit that helps coordinate efforts.

According to the grand jury report, the health agency and private AIDS service agencies now concentrate efforts on people infected with or at high risk for HIV or AIDS, while the American Red Cross and community groups work to educate the general public about prevention, reduce fears, teach compassion and dispel myths.

“Children are being educated in the schools, but we would like to educate the families as well,” Salamida said.

As of June 1996, 4,398 people in Orange County had contracted AIDS, of whom 57% have died, according to the grand jury report. In the first six months of 1996, 141 new cases of AIDS were reported, the document says.

As of Oct. 31, 78% of the cases in Orange County had been caused by homosexual contact and 11% came from intravenous drug use, according to the grand jury. The remainder came primarily from heterosexual contact.

AIDS has stricken an increasing proportion of women in Orange County. The report states that female cases in 1995 more than doubled the number reported in 1992. Salamida said women are becoming infected through use of infected needles or through partners who are infected.

The report notes that in areas where there is a needle exchange program, HIV infection has decreased.

But the grand jury did not call for a needle exchange program in Orange County. It is illegal in California, although San Francisco has a waiver. “We could not recommend that,” Salamida said of a needle exchange program. “But I think it needs to be discussed. People need to be made aware that this is going on around the country, and they’re showing it does slow down the spread of AIDS.”

The report also calls for the county’s HIV Planning Advisory Council to reach out to residents of Asian descent, who are not represented on the panel.