HIV still a threat, especially for seniors

When I lived in Paris, my best friend was a West African beauty. Charlotte had skin the color of mahogany and a curvy, voluptuous frame. Wherever we went — on the Metro, on the streets of our neighborhood — men stopped and stared. Together, we once went to a dance party on an old wooden ship along the Seine. The boat rocked on its moorings and water sloshed against the hull as African beats pumped through the stereo. Charlotte hypnotized the crowd with her fevered, sensual moves. By the end of the night, she had acquired several new suitors.

In fact, Charlotte always had a handful of men waiting in the wings. They wooed her with gifts of food, jewelry and even cash. She had one or two big loves, but the rest of her romances were short-lived trysts. One day, she asked if I had ever had an AIDS test.

"No," I told her. "Have you?"

She shook her head and pulled out a sheet of paper with clinic names and addresses. "This is where they test for free," she said. "Would you go with me?"

We bundled up against the cold January

day and trekked to a distant neighborhood in the north side of Paris. Graffiti covered the walls of tenement buildings and men on benches eyed us suspiciously. We found the clinic tucked alongside a narrow street and took our places in the brightly lit waiting room. When the nurse called for Charlotte, she looked at me with frightened eyes. I squeezed her hand and waited my turn.

In Charlotte's native Cameroon, the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the adult population hovers around 5 percent — a far cry from the epidemics in Zimbabwe and Botswana, where almost a quarter of the adult population carries the virus. With the outcry over the spread of AIDS in Africa in recent years, many Americans have been lulled into believing that AIDS is a foreign, third-world phenomenon. The truth is, the virus is still a threat here, and it's no longer a burden of the young.

As a matter of fact, a study at Temple University says men over 50 are increasingly atrisk for contracting HIV as their number of sexual partners increases with the use of erectile dysfunction drugs like Viagra. And many of these men aren't using condoms. A study out of Britain published in the International Journal of Epidemiology says condom use is particularly low between mature partners. Only 38 percent of men and 28 percent of women aged 35-44 used condoms during their first sexual encounter, versus 68 percent of men and 67 percent of women aged 16-19.

What does this mean for our Southwest Florida population? Everyone (including seniors) needs to be aware. That means using protection and getting tested. If you have HIV, you absolutely must tell your partners. Through the national Web site inspot.org, people can even send anonymous e-cards with messages like "It's not what you brought to the party, it's what you left with." The Web site also has a searchable feature to find local clinics.

As for my friend Charlotte? Her results came back negative (and mine did, too).

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