KPBS Midday Edition

Aging With AIDS: San Diegans Living With Virus On The Rise

By Alison St John / Reporter, Marissa Cabrera / News Producer, KPBS Midday Edition, Peggy Pico / KPBS Evening Edition Host

Published December 2, 2013 at 8:39 AM PST

This story was published more than 10 years ago.

Aging With AIDS: San Diegans Living With Virus On The Rise

Guests

Patrick Loose, chief, San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency’s HIV, STD and Hepatitis Branch

Dr. Terri Lather, HIV specialist, Family Health Centers of San Diego County

Sunday was the 25th World AIDS Day.

There is much to be thankful for in the development of new drugs to keep AIDS and HIV at bay, but what are the trends among those who continue to live with the disease decades after diagnosis?

Partly because of the effectiveness of the drugs, it turns out there is a growing number of people living in San Diego with an AIDS diagnosis who are over 50.

“Advances in medication and treatment have helped individuals with AIDS to live longer, healthier lives,” said Patrick Loose, Chief of San Diego County's Health and Human Services Agency’s HIV, STD and Hepatitis Branch.

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Loose says about 40% of people living with HIV are now age 50 or older and they may face different challenges than those who are younger.

"We see a number of patients or long-term survivors and as the transition to older and middle-age what we are seeing is even when the HIV infection is under excellent control for interactive viral therapy that they are developing aging related conditions such as cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, certain types of cancers at a higher rate and at an earlier age than the HIV negative counterparts," said Dr. Terri Lather, HIV Specialist with Family Health Care Centers of San Diego.

This is an area that is currently under a lot of research. One theory is that even when HIV is under control, it causes inflammation in the body which can lead to premature aging or accelerated aging.

There's also a growing number of older people who are being freshly diagnosed.

San Diego Health Officials say from 2000-2012 there was a 6% jump in the number of reported HIV positive cases in the 50 and over age group.

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"A lot of the outreach and education has to be done to target older individuals, " said Dr. Lather. "From the healthcare standpoint I think providers need to be more comfortable in talking about sex with their older patients."

Since the beginning of the AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s, about 15,000 San Diego County residents have been diagnosed with AIDS, 7,221 are living with the disease and 3,200 don't know they're infected with the virus, according to the HHSA.

Nationwide, the government says that by 2015, more than half of all people living with HIV in the U.S. will be over 50.

KPBS Midday Edition

Alison St John

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.

Marissa Cabrera

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Marissa Cabrera worked as a producer for KPBS Midday Edition and had previously served as a Newscast Producer for KPBS' Morning Edition. Before joining KPBS she reported on Vatican affairs, social, and cultural issues in Rome, Italy. She also contributed to a documentary on sex abuse in the Catholic Church. Marissa has worked as a multimedia journalist at various news stations in San Diego and Monterey as well as Columbia, Missouri. Marissa graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia with a bachelor's degree in broadcast journalism.

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Peggy Pico

Peggy Pico served as the host of KPBS Evening Edition. Pico originally joined the KPBS newsroom as the science and technology reporter in 2010 after spending two years covering biotechnology and medical news in the Bay Area. Pico was raised in San Diego and has worked as a broadcast journalist in California, Arizona, and Texas. She previously reported for NBC 7/39 where she worked as a medical and science reporter for five years. Pico has won two Emmy’s and numerous awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, Associated Press, and the San Diego Press Club. She also received the USC Health Reporter Fellowship and is a member of California Chicano News Media Association and the Association of Health Care Journalists.

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