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HIV’s impact changes
in isles, foundation says

By Helen Altonn
Star-Bulletin

January was the first month in at least 15 years of records at The Life Foundation that none of its clients died from AIDS.

"It's good news," said Peter Whiticar, chief of the STD/AIDS Prevention Branch, state Health Department.

He said it reflects a state and national trend of declining AIDS deaths. This doesn't mean HIV infections are down but medications are helping people live longer and healthier with HIV without developing the AIDS diagnosis, he said.

While celebrating progress in dealing with the disease, the Life Foundation stresses that it isn't over.

Two clients died in the first week of this month, said Paul Groesbeck, executive director of Hawaii's oldest and largest AIDS organization.

He said the disease "hasn't abated. It hasn't left Hawaii. It hasn't even packed its luggage to leave. But it has changed greatly in how it impacts people."

More than 1,400 Hawaii residents have died from AIDS since the first cases were reported here in 1982, the foundation said.

When the foundation was organized that year, its goal was to help HIV-positive people die peacefully, Groesbeck said.

Now it looks at HIV as "a serious, chronic, potentially survivable disease" and is trying to help infected people live quality lives, he said.

In the early 1990s, Groesbeck said, as many as a dozen Life Foundation clients died in one month. That began changing in 1996 when protease inhibitors and other drugs became available, he said.

Client deaths fell from 93 in 1994 to 30 last year, he said.

The state estimates between 2300 and 3200 people living with HIV statewide. The foundation provides services and information to about 500 clients on Oahu.

Groesbeck said the January death-free record is symbolic of the fact that many people afflicted with a disease once thought to be universally fatal are living longer.

In fact, he added, "People are living long enough to die of other things."