MAP raises awareness of HIV/AIDS in API community

Michael Wood READ TIME: 3 MIN.

Massachusetts Asian and Pacific Islanders (MAP) for Health held its Rooted in Acceptance reception and awards ceremony May 15 at the Boston Center for the Arts to honor individuals who have worked to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Asian and Pacific Islander (API) community. The event was held to coincide with National API HIV/AIDS Awareness Day on May 19.

During a press conference prior to the ceremony the two awardees, Amit Dixit of the Massachusetts Area South Asian Lambda Association (MASALA) and Dr. Michael Wong of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, discussed how they got involved in battling the epidemic. Dixit, a former board member of MAP for Health, said he joined MAP after receiving his own positive diagnosis in 1994. At that time, before the advent of the life-saving drug cocktail treatments, Dixit's doctor told him he could expect to live between 12 and 18 months. On top of that bleak diagnosis he said he worried about how his family would react to the news.

"The stigma back then, there was no one we knew who was South Asian and positive," said Dixit.

To his relief his parents supported him, and within the year protease inhibitors helped him stay healthy and gave him a new shot at life. Yet even within his gay South Asian circle of friends he felt reluctant to talk about being HIV-positive, and dreaded running into friends on the way to events that would out him as living with HIV. That changed when he visited MAP for the first time. Through MAP, Dixit began speaking publicly on panels and in other forums about his diagnosis, and over time he began to feel more comfortable about telling his story.

"It's been a long journey, and just being able to say I'm a gay HIV-positive South Asian male was a long journey," said Dixit.

Wong, who works in Beth Israel's division of infectious diseases and serves as the president of AIDS Action Committee's board of directors, said that he began focusing on AIDS early in his medical career. At first his own social circle was relatively untouched by the disease, but he said through his patients he quickly felt a strong connection to the epidemic. He soon found himself feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of the crisis as he broke the news to countless patients that they had AIDS and, later, attended many of their funerals.

"Every one of those patients ended up becoming a friend of mine," said Wong.

MAP for Health executive director Jacob Smith Yang unveiled a new public service announcement that features actress Joan Chen discussing the need to confront the epidemic in the API community. The PSA is part of the Banyan Tree Project, a PSA campaign running in several U.S. cities. Yang said MAP is currently working to place the PSA on local television. He said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have found that although APIs represent less than one percent of all U.S. HIV/AIDS cases, they had the highest annual percentage increase between 2001 and 2004, and the number continued to rise in 2005. He said effective prevention efforts were crucial to keeping those numbers low.

Over the past year, MAP for Health has increased its efforts to get gay and bi men in the API community to undergo HIV testing. Ramani Sripada, MAP's director of programs and capacity building, said that this year MAP has tested more than 20 gay and bi men, more than the organization has ever done before. She attributed the increase to a program that utilizes social networks, street outreach, and other methods. Sripada said in total MAP has tested about 60 people this year, a combination of gay and bi men and immigrants and refugees.

"We have tested the most people we've ever tested this year," said Sripada.


by Michael Wood

Michael Wood is a contributor and Editorial Assistant for EDGE Publications.

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