SAN FRANCISCO – The San Francisco Department of Public Health is drastically cutting funding for HIV treatment and prevention in the Asian American Pacific Islander community and has allocated no money to stem the spread of the virus in Asian American women whose rates of HIV infections are on the rise.
Over the past four years, Asian Americans have had the highest increase in new HIV infections, going up from six percent to 10.3 percent. “Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that the HIV infection rate in A&PI communities will surpass that of Latinos by 2015 and of African Americans by 2020 if left unchecked,” said Tri Do, an assistant adjunct professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, in an earlier story (I-W, May 27).
Only 10 percent of API men and less than one percent of Asian American women have been tested for the HIV virus.
San Francisco annually awards $9.7 million in funding to organizations within the city that work on HIV treatment and prevention. But the city is rolling out a new plan for prevention – known as New Directions – which primarily funds organizations working with Caucasian, African American and Latino gay men, according to API community advocates.
“Trikone is saddened by the San Francisco Public Health Department’s decision to slash funding for HIV/AIDS programs affecting the API community,” Harsha Mallajosyula, advocacy director for Trikone – an organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people – told India-West.
“Surveys have consistently shown that the API community is one of the most vulnerable communities to new HIV infections and these budget cuts will only curtail the testing and awareness efforts taking place in earnest,” he said.
