Half of HIV-positive gay men in Chicago don’t know they’re infected
by Bill Healy
The survey involved random testing of more than 500 gay men at events such as the Gay Pride Parade, shown here in 2009. PHOTO BY BILL HEALY
Three decades after the start of the AIDS epidemic, gay men in Chicago are still battling HIV at alarmingly high rates. And many infected men don’t even know they’re fighting it.
Half of HIV-positive gay men in Chicago don’t know they’re infected, according to a recent study by the city’s Department of Public Health. The study, which used the term “men who have sex with men” in place of “gay men,” involved random testing of more than 500 gay men throughout 2008.
The number of individuals who unknowingly have the virus is especially frightening given that nearly a third of gay black men in Chicago are HIV-positive. For gay white men in Chicago, the rate of infection is 11.3 percent; for gay Hispanic males, the rate is 12 percent, the study stated.
“The findings confirm what we know about the path of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Chicago, and they are consistent with findings in other large urban areas across the country,” said Christopher Brown, an assistant commissioner at the Department of Public Health, in a statement
More than 22,000 Chicagoans have been diagnosed with AIDS since the epidemic broke out in the early 1980s; of that total, 12,000 were known to have died from the disease, according to the report.
The virus, which was originally thought to be a “gay plague,” has simultaneously brought the gay community together and torn it apart over the years. The study underscores the need for frequent HIV testing of gay men in the city and, sadly, recognition that the battle for survival still rages.
