Midwest Freelancer archive article
BASUAH promoted at health and cultural expo
(Published Saturday, Feb. 18, 2006)
By Chris Post/Midwest Freelancer
Illinois students were challenged this week to join the fight against the spread of HIV and AIDS.
Making a stop in Rockford for a health and cultural expo at Rock Valley College, Illinois Public Health Director Dr. Eric E. Whitaker promoted Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich’s new HIV/AIDS awareness campaign called BASUAH (Brothers And Sisters United Against HIV/AIDS).
While Blagojevich’s program is new, Whitaker’s commitment to fighting HIV and AIDS is not. As one of the founders of Project Brotherhood: A Black Men’s Clinic, he saw a need for increased outreach because African American men were dying prematurely from preventable diseases like HIV/AIDS.
“Growing up on the Southside of Chicago I saw that many African Americans didn’t live long enough to collect social security,” Whitaker said. “Many died of diseases they could have prevented, like diabetes and heart disease, because they couldn’t afford or didn’t want to go to a doctor or clinic to get tested.”
With programs like BASUAH and Project Brotherhood, Whitaker told students there is no longer an excuse to suffer from a preventable disease. “We’ve brought the Wellness on Wheels van right into your community where you can be tested for free as part of the BASUAH initiative,” he said.
BASUAH focuses on education, prevention and testing, targeting African Americans because of the number of HIV cases reported within that community in Illinois. In 2004, African Americans made up more than half of the newly reported HIV cases in the state while they only represent 15 percent of the state’s population.
“The majority of HIV infections among African Americans are individuals under the age of 40, so it is critical to reach the youth community with prevention messages and the importance of getting tested,” Whitaker said. “Our hope is that today’s youth are reminded that HIV is not going away and they can prevent themselves from being a statistic.”
In addition to the college campus visits like the one Thursday at Rock Valley, the BASUAH program is also partnering with African-American churches and their youth ministries to establish peer networks and encourage testing, implementing new rules for statewide rapid HIV and AIDS testing, conducting perinatal HIV rapid testing and reporting past results.
For more information about the program or HIV and AIDS in general, visit www.basuah.org
By Chris Post/Midwest Freelancer
Illinois students were challenged this week to join the fight against the spread of HIV and AIDS.
Making a stop in Rockford for a health and cultural expo at Rock Valley College, Illinois Public Health Director Dr. Eric E. Whitaker promoted Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich’s new HIV/AIDS awareness campaign called BASUAH (Brothers And Sisters United Against HIV/AIDS).
While Blagojevich’s program is new, Whitaker’s commitment to fighting HIV and AIDS is not. As one of the founders of Project Brotherhood: A Black Men’s Clinic, he saw a need for increased outreach because African American men were dying prematurely from preventable diseases like HIV/AIDS.
“Growing up on the Southside of Chicago I saw that many African Americans didn’t live long enough to collect social security,” Whitaker said. “Many died of diseases they could have prevented, like diabetes and heart disease, because they couldn’t afford or didn’t want to go to a doctor or clinic to get tested.”
With programs like BASUAH and Project Brotherhood, Whitaker told students there is no longer an excuse to suffer from a preventable disease. “We’ve brought the Wellness on Wheels van right into your community where you can be tested for free as part of the BASUAH initiative,” he said.
BASUAH focuses on education, prevention and testing, targeting African Americans because of the number of HIV cases reported within that community in Illinois. In 2004, African Americans made up more than half of the newly reported HIV cases in the state while they only represent 15 percent of the state’s population.
“The majority of HIV infections among African Americans are individuals under the age of 40, so it is critical to reach the youth community with prevention messages and the importance of getting tested,” Whitaker said. “Our hope is that today’s youth are reminded that HIV is not going away and they can prevent themselves from being a statistic.”
In addition to the college campus visits like the one Thursday at Rock Valley, the BASUAH program is also partnering with African-American churches and their youth ministries to establish peer networks and encourage testing, implementing new rules for statewide rapid HIV and AIDS testing, conducting perinatal HIV rapid testing and reporting past results.
For more information about the program or HIV and AIDS in general, visit www.basuah.org