COUNTY REPORTS 14 CASES OF AIDS

Susan Smith marked the 10th anniversary of the first diagnosis of AIDS Wednesday by talking of a young Cape Girardeau mother of three who had become very special to her before dying of the disease.

The woman is one of eight people Smith has seen die in the two years she has worked as the state of Missouri's only HIV care coordinator in Southeast Missouri.

"I loved her. I worked with her for 14 months," Smith said of the woman, who died late last year at 27 years of age.

"I become so close to people," she continued. "I remember their birthdays. I remember the names of their dogs."

How the woman contracted the human immuno-deficiency virus (HIV) that can eventually cause AIDS remains a mystery, said Smith. Either she picked up the virus from heterosexual sex or tainted blood from several blood transfusions she had during operations, Smith said.

Cape Girardeau County alone has had eight people die from AIDS from 1982 to the present, said a public information specialist with the Missouri Department of Health's Bureau of AIDS Prevention. The specialist, Kathy Bonney, said current bureau information shows 14 people as having AIDS in the county and 14 being HIV positive.

It was unclear, however, whether any of those cases overlapped in the two categories. Demographic breakdowns for the figures, including the number of cases attributed to homosexual and heterosexual activity and intravenous drug use, were unavailable.

Statewide, there were 2,064 total AIDS cases as of April 30, a bureau report says. AIDS deaths in Missouri as of that time totaled 1,090.

The numbers do not take into account former Missourians who have returned home to live out the course of the disease in the company of family or friends, said Smith, who works out of the Jackson area health office. A person is listed in the statistics of the state where he or she has been diagnosed as having the virus.

Smith started her job, which requires her to serve as a counselor as well as a care coordinator, when the state first created the position. Overall, she has 30 clients. The number includes about three from St. Louis where she helps with the client load, she said.

She said she didn't know off-hand the number of her clients who have AIDS as opposed to only HIV infections.

Of the clients, she said, 50 percent are heterosexuals who have never been intravenous drug users. But some of them did catch the HIV from blood transfusions during surgery, she said.

The majority of her clients, though they have an HIV infection, are still healthy and attending school or working, said Smith. Among the clients are a 1-year-old child and a grandmother with AIDS.

"I sat in a Hardee's restaurant with a 19-year-old girl who just found out she's infected," added Smith, "and she says, `How could this happen? How could this happen to me?' And what do I say to her?"

The girl, who is from the Bootheel, is one of her clients who caught the virus from heterosexual sex, said Smith. "This is not a promiscuous person, not a drug user. (She's) someone you'd like."

Seeing young mothers like the Cape Girardeau woman die from AIDS affects her the most, Smith said. The hurt is there, too, when she deals with parents who have to care for their adult-age children, especially when the disease has emaciated its victims.

"When you see a 40-year-old mother who has to pick up her son and carry him to the bathroom, carry him to the car.... Oh boy," she sighed, "that touches me."

On top of everything else, because she handles cases in Southeast Missouri by herself, she doesn't have the same amount of emotional support that members of the team in St. Louis have.

"The advantage of the job is I've learned to live one day at a time," said Smith. "I guess I feel life is so precious now."

Charlotte Craig, director of the Cape Girardeau County Public Health Center, said only about a dozen people have tested positive for HIV in the approximately five years testing has been done at the center.

"I think that does reflect a relatively low number, but the fact that there's any positives at all means we need to stay on our toes and interested in the problem," Craig said. The center tests an average of 20 to 25 people a week.

The tests are free. Both pre- and post-counseling are offered with the tests.

A demographic profile from the Bureau of AIDS shows white males as making up 75.4 percent of the number of reported AIDS cases in Missouri from 1982 to April 30. Black males accounted for 17.3 percent.

White females and black females made up 2.6 and 1.6 percent, respectively.

AIDS cases attributed to homosexual and bisexual activity amounted to 77.6 percent, with intravenous drug use accounting for 7 percent. Homosexuals also classified as intravenous drug users accounted for 7.4 percent.

Two percent of the cases were attributed to heterosexual activity and 2.5 percent resulted from blood transfusions.

Additional information about AIDS and related assistance, including financial assistance, is available by calling Smith at 290-5830.