By Tuseda A. Graggs

On Monday, World AIDS Day, the Oakland-Bay Area Chapter of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women observed the five-year anniversary of the “Sistahs Getting Real About HIV/AIDS” billboard campaign designed to raise awareness of the epidemic within the African American community.

    The event, held at the corner of West Grand and San Pablo avenues in Oakland, included the launch of a new billboard campaign in nearly a dozen Bay Area locations. Free oral HIV tests were provided in a nearby mobile education bus where local residents waited patiently in line for testing.

    The NCBW brought together representatives from a variety of agencies for the event including the California Prevention and Education Project (CAL-PEP), San Francisco Black Coalition on AIDS, and Women Organized to Respond to Life-threatening Diseases (WORLD) to speak on the critical importance of HIV testing and treatment. Catholic Healthcare West provided a grant to help fund the effort.
   “Early testing is the key,” said NCBW President Barbara Williams. “We will continue to take it to the streets. We can no longer just play it safe, we have to make it safe.”
    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about 1.1 million Americans are currently living with HIV/AIDS. Young African American women comprise the fastest growing group of those infected with the deadly disease. Oakland has the highest concentration of HIV cases in Alameda County.
   Williams stressed the NCBW’s desire to not only slow the number of people who are infected with HIV but to also increase the number of those helping to fight the epidemic. The billboard campaign is one way to bring awareness to the disease, she said.
    Billboards advertising Sistahs Getting Real About HIV/AIDS are located in six Oakland locations and five in San Francisco.
    Melinda Pierson, a health educator with the San Francisco Black Coalition on AIDS, said it should not be unusual to see the billboards.
    “This is not something I see everyday, but I should,” Pierson said about the billboards. “HIV and AIDS are the main killers of African American women 24 to 35 years old. This is real. It’s only a sex partner away.”
    To further illustrate the seriousness of Oakland’s HIV/AIDS epidemic, Gloria Lockett, executive director of CAL-PEP, said the mobile testing center parked at 98th Avenue and International Boulevard since 6 a.m. on Monday had tested 15 people; of those, two tested HIV-positive.
   “I can’t tell you how important it is to know your status,” said Lockett. “That’s two more people who know what their status is. Many people think having a job and one sex partner is a blueprint to everything being okay. But it’s not.”
    Anyone can be infected with HIV, she said. “AIDS doesn’t care what color you are, whether you are a preacher, whether you are a doctor or if you are homeless,” she said.
    After being tested people must be directed to resources that can help, said Carla Dillard Smith, deputy director of CAL-PEP.
   “The reality is often when people get a positive result they go into shock and they go underground,” she said. Many people may wait a year or more until they experience symptoms to begin treatment.
    She listed a number of community resources that can offer support, including Highland Hospital in Oakland, the East Bay AIDS Center, the Magic Johnson Clinic, Vital Life Services, WORLD, the IRIS Project and La Clinica de La Raza.
    Representatives speaking on behalf of Congresswoman Barbara Lee and Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson expressed their support of NCBW, encouraged testing and urged additional government funding to fight HIV/AIDS. Carson sent a proclamation to honor the NCBW’s ongoing fight against HIV/AIDS.
    To get a free HIV test at any time, contact Sonya Richey at CAL-PEP at (510) 874-7850. For more information about Sistahs Getting Real About HIV/AIDS, contact the Oakland- Bay Area Chapter of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women at (510) 653-4085 or visit www.onehundredblackwomen.com.