1987 SPECIAL REPORT: "NEW JERSEY…LIVING WITH AIDS"

The AIDS virus has reached deeply into the nation’s black and Hispanic ghettos, devastating communities and families already overwhelmed with social and medical ills.

As the disease spreads, it is changing from a plague once overwhelmingly identified with homosexual men to one that strikes more and more poor blacks and Hispanics, mainly drug addicts, their sex partners and babies.

Nowhere is this change more evident than in Newark. Government and community groups in this largely black city of 330,000, which ranks fifth in the nation in total number of AIDS cases, are struggling to mount a counterattack against a pernicious new enemy.

The plight of Newark is crystallized in this chilling fact: blood surveys last year in the maternity ward at University Hospital, which serves a mainly poor, black and Hispanic community, determined that 1 of every 23 babies was born to a mother infected with the AIDS virus. That ratio is likely to be typical of several Newark hospitals, said Dr. Edward Connor, University Hospital’s associate director of infectious diseases, who did the studies.

Doctors estimate that half the babies born to infected mothers -one in every 46 babies born – are infected themselves and have a high chance of developing the fatal disease in early childhood.

”That is a horribly, devastatingly high number,” said Dr. James Oleske, who heads the infectious disease division at University Hospital and the AIDS program at Children’s Hospital of New Jersey.

The AIDS virus is exacting a fearful toll on many black and Hispanic families here, infecting two or even three generations at once. The virus is typically spread by contaminated drug needles, by heterosexual intercourse between a drug addict and a spouse or lover, and from mother to newborn in the womb or at birth.

”In cities like Newark, AIDS has become a disease of the family,” said Wayne Duncan, coordinator of the National Minority Outreach Initiative Grant Program for the United States Centers for Disease Control. ”We’re talking about women, children, men. It’s not skipping over anyone.” Dr. Patricia Kloser, clinical director of the AIDS program at University Hospital, recalled the case of Mary, a 29-year-old Hispanic woman who lost her husband, young son and baby daughter to AIDS in the space of two years.

The husband, an intravenous drug user, was infected through contaminated needles. He died of pneumonia last year. Mary contracted the virus from intercourse with her husband and passed it on at birth to both of her children. Her son died at the age of 3 from meningitis related to AIDS, her daughter at 18 months from lung problems associated with AIDS. Mary herself is now suffering from AIDS-related complex, a set of serious symptoms that are often a precursor of full-fledged AIDS. Hope That One Might Live

Another of Dr. Kloser’s patients, Joan, contracted the virus from her husband, an intravenous drug user who died of AIDS-related pneumonia two years ago. Her next lover, also a drug addict, has been diagnosed with AIDS-related complex. Joan herself died of an AIDS-related infection last year at the age of 22.

She had three children. One died of crib death, but doctors now suspect the baby may have been infected with the AIDS virus. Another died of AIDS. And the third is now losing weight and suffering from AIDS-related complex.

Though she knew she was infected, Joan decided to have the third child in the hope that at least one might live. ”She used to carry pictures of them around in her wallet,” Dr. Kloser recalled.

In another family, an 8-year-old boy with AIDS is the only survivor; his mother, father and sister have all died of the disease. The boy has told health workers he wants to die so he can join his family in Heaven. One Plague Among Many

Despite its impact on individual families, AIDS is not sending shock waves through neighborhoods that are already suffering from drugs, crime, poverty, illiteracy, unemployment and deteriorating housing.

People in the Walsh Homes, an isolated, rundown housing project in northeastern Newark, often deal with ”the virus,” as it is known on the streets, with denial, humility and sometimes crude humor.

”Kids around here joke about the virus,” said Sabrina Gaskins, a resident of Walsh Homes. ”Someone loses a little weight and the kids snicker and say, ‘Hey, I bet he got the virus, man.’ They’re really silly about it.” #AIDS

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