Black leaders urge more action against AIDS

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- New outreach programs, better resource allocation and elimination of racial disparities in health care are among steps urged by a group of black leaders to energize the battle against the AIDS epidemic in the black community.

The leaders -- from the fields of medicine, politics, religion, social welfare, business and entertainment -- ended a two-day meeting with the release of a five-point plan to be presented to the Bush administration.

IN-DEPTH See our in-depth special on AIDS at 20     TRANSCRIPTS: What do experts have to say about AIDS in America? • Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher discusses the evolving epidemic • Kaiser Family Foundation's Jennifer Kates discusses attitudes toward the disease • HIV co-discoverer Dr. Robert Gallo discusses research efforts

The leaders also vowed to increase their own communities' efforts to fight AIDS and HIV, the virus that causes the syndrome.

The five-point plan includes:

•  Resource allocation: Direct funds where they are most needed, including funding for a minority AIDS/HIV initiative, money for community-based organizations and adequate funding for HIV-related housing and housing services.

•  Outreach programs: Support the creation and implementation of innovative initiatives addressing HIV/AIDS in highly affected populations, including gays, bisexuals, transgender individuals, those who are incarcerated and women involved with men who have sex with men.

•  Health outcomes: Eliminate racial/ethnic disparities in health outcomes for all chronic diseases, including HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases, hepatitis and tuberculosis; strengthen data tracking and reporting; and establish an Office of Correctional Health.

•  Housing: Give high priority to the development of new housing units for individuals with HIV/AIDS.

•  International outreach: Strengthen efforts to reduce HIV infections and AIDS mortality in Africa and support the development of permanent arrangements to care for children being orphaned by AIDS.

Release of the plan culminated a gathering called "Meeting of the Millennium," held at Morehouse College in Atlanta and timed to coincide with commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

"We have all come here to update our knowledge and renew our commitment to breaking the stranglehold of HIV and AIDS," said Congressional Black Caucus member Representative Donna Christian-Christensen, a Democrat from the Virgin Islands. "The face of AIDS has changed and it's now ours."

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), although blacks make up less than 13 percent of the U.S. population, they represent more than 56 percent of new HIV infections reported through the end of 2000.

The CDC estimates that 1 in 50 black men and 1 in 160 black women are infected with HIV, meaning that blacks are 10 times more likely than whites to be diagnosed with HIV, and 10 times more likely to die of AIDS.

Coretta Scott King, widow of Martin Luther King Jr., expressed her support for the work of the group.

"As we mark 20 years since the beginning of the AIDS pandemic, we are seeing some of the highest AIDS infection rates ever recorded in the black community," she said.

Noting that "the struggle to prevent the spread of AIDS and the suffering that accompanies AIDS are more difficult by the persistence of bigotry and prejudice today toward gay people," King implored the group to launch a national campaign to fight homophobia in the black community.

"Let us work together to ensure that homophobia, ignorance and low self-esteem no longer feed the spread of AIDS," she said.

The five-point plan will be assembled into an official report over the next few weeks and presented to the Bush administration. The National Black Leadership Conference on AIDS (NBLCA) hopes for a meeting between President Bush and representatives of the coalition.

The Atlanta meeting was organized by the NBLCA, partnering with the Congressional Black Caucus; the National Medical Association; and the surgeon general's Leadership Campaign on AIDS. Pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline underwrote the meeting.