Hundreds Expected at Walk for Life in Providence

Hundreds of people are expected to participate in the Walk for Life, one of the state's largest annual HIV/AIDS fundraisers, on the State House lawn in Providence on Sunday, Oct. 2.

Walk for Life is designed to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS as well as raise money, which allows AIDS Project Rhode Island to continue to provide those who live with the virus vital services and education needed to combat it.

This year the theme of the Walk for Life is "Take Charge! Get Tested!" and the goal is to promote HIV testing among all Rhode Islanders who may be at risk for the virus.

"People are still dying from this disease," said Dr. Josiah "Jody" Rich, who is an attending physician at Miriam Hospital in Providence and is also a professor of medicine at Brown University.

Rich has been treating people with HIV for more than two decades. After working in Atlanta and Boston, Rich came to Rhode Island as an infectious disease specialist.

Rich said the epidemic underwent a "miraculous transformation" in the 1990s. After a decade when AIDS claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, it soon became a chronic, treatable disease, thanks to a slew of new medications.

In Rhode Island, Rich worked to promote needle exchange programs in order to reduce the spread of the disease by intravenous drug users. In the past few years, the rate of HIV transmission by men who have sex with men has skyrocketed.

"We need to do more HIV testing," said Rich, noting a high percentage of the population with HIV remain unaware of their diagnosis. "We still have people showing up at the clinic in the late stages of the disease, never knowing they were infected."

Rich believes the stigma that still surrounds HIV, and what he calls a sex-drenched culture, are factors in people deciding to engage in risky behaviors and then refusing to be tested. There is also a lack of promotion of safe sex in the media.

"Using condoms is just one thing. The other exciting change is if people get on treatment, the treatment is so effective it reduces transmission to others," said Rich. "The combination of using condoms and being on treatment is going to stop this epidemic in its tracks. I would like Rhode Island to be the first state in the nation to have everybody tested and everybody in care."

Rich hopes more people will be tested for HIV so they will know their status and then seek treatment. He notes there are excellent care providers in the state, but LGBT Rhode Islanders need to work together to combat the virus' spread in the Ocean State.

"Everyone in the community has to pull together to address this problem," said Rich. "We need to change the culture to one where it is normal to know your status, to know your partner's status and to openly discuss how to prevent HIV and syphilis."

Log onto www.aidsprojectri.org or call (401) 831-5522 for more information.