County has 1,200 documented cases of HIV/AIDS

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Ribbon and candles marking World Aids Day. | Special to Sun-Times Media

Updated: January 31, 2012 1:46AM

It has been 30 years since the disease called AIDS was first reported, and recorded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

While potent new medication therapies are keeping people with HIV/AIDS healthier and living longer, the disease still poses a threat, said Brian Bongner, coordinator of the Lake County Health Department’s Sexually Transmitted Infections Program.

“We still see new infections, we’re still facing the same thing with youth we’ve always faced,” Bongner said. “As kids, we grow up thinking nothing’s going to hurt us. Young people today have never grown up in a world where HIV didn’t exist. They’re not getting the message, ‘You’re still at risk.’”

Thursday was World Aids Day, an international effort to raise awareness of the disease and encourage people to unite to combat it. In Lake County, it’s not the documented 1,200 cases Bongner worries about, it’s the estimated 250 people who may not even be aware they’re infected.

“It’s those who don’t know they’re positive who are responsible for the vast majority of infections,” Bongner said.

While 1,200 might seem a negligible number compared to the county’s population of 700,000, Bongner calls it “small but on the upper scale” in a state that has a higher-than-average prevalence rate.

Because Lake County is a collar county and sits between Chicago and Milwaukee, which have large, transient populations, its “community viral load” is higher. A viral load is higher, which means the disease is more likely to be transmitted, when people who are infected go untreated.

“If you live in a community where a lot of people are impacted, even if you only have sex with one person, because there’s more people who might be HIV positive, you’re at greater risk,” Bongner said. “It’s like having your car in the middle of a cornfield or in the middle of the highway.”

A group of organizations collaborated on a World AIDS Day event held at Waukegan High School’s Brookside Campus. Alexian Brothers The Harbor, a transitional living center for those with HIV/AIDS, First Congregational United Church of Christ, which helped to found it, Catholic Charities, Waukegan Public Schools, the Waukegan Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority and the health department sent representatives and invited clients to the evening, which featured dinner, music and a candle-lighting ceremony. The theme was “Stand Against Stigma.”

“Our communities don’t recognize they might be the ones at risk,” Bongner said. “It’s other people – poor people, gay men, injectable drug users, people who have too much sex. There’s a stigma that people who have contracted HIV have engaged in promiscuous sexual behavior. But this is a disease that affects everyone. You might only have one partner. It’s because of the environment you’re in.”

Karen Kowal, director of The Harbor in Waukegan, said it’s important for people with HIV/AIDS to know they’re not alone.

“The most powerful thing about World Aids Day in Lake County is that people can be around other people who are not only HIV positive, but people who are HIV positive and supportive,” she said. “It’s important to see there’s a network of support. People really can gain strength from that.”