THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
In 2021 1.08 million people were infected with HIV in the USA out of a total population of 333 million. In 2021 there were more than 36000 new HIV diagnoses and 19982 people with HIV died. Most HIV infected people are men (76.9%). Of these 75% contracted the virus through sexual contact with another man. Although the black population makes up only 12.6% of the total they form the largest part of the HIV population. 39.6% of all HIV infected are black 24.6% are Hispanic and 28.5% are white.
Compared to most countries in Western Europe but also to several African countries a large percentage of people only reach out to health care at the AIDS stage (21%). It fits in with the general picture that the reach out to care is lower than one might expect.
Only 75% of all HIV infected people received the necessary HIV care and treatment in 2021. As a result only 66% of the entire HIV population has an undetectable status. Where the official UN target is to achieve the 90-90-90* the USA is lagging far behind.
Various reasons are given for this lower outreach by the HIV population. For example in the USA there is a national policy that each of the 50 states self-determines their policy regarding healthcare. Poverty discrimination stigmatization of the HIV community and healthcare that is sometimes difficult to reach nd therefore difficult to access are other factors hat play a role.
On the positive side the use of PrEP is increasing year after year. In 2022 more than 435000 people used this.
(Source: AIDSvu an interactive online mapping tool)
George
“The most beautiful moment was when I finally came to the shots on the roof. For all three of us — George, Wilko and me — it was a moment of pure concentration, of simple purity. Everything was retold and shared. And walking along with Wilko looking at his screen, I felt that everything in this shot came together. At that moment I knew this would be the last shot of the film.”
Willem, our film director, talks about working with George Leon Kelly in San Francisco. “A completely authentic man, with no mask, sweet and courageous, sans rancune [devoid of anger] and incredibly energetic: Jumpin’ Jack Flash.”
Since 1982, when George was 22, he has known that he’s HIV-positive. In 1982 everything says that he won’t live long. George has just started university and has already lost some friends to “an unexplained illness”. “What’s going on? They were closing the bathhouses, homosexuality almost went back into the closet again.” George doesn’t want his family to worry too much about him, he wants to spare them the pain of his suffering. He retreats to the mountains with a friend to die. Fate decides otherwise. Thanks to his understanding hotel employer, in whom he confides his HIV status, in 1989 he gets the chance to work in San Francisco. It’s a godsend: “I felt the comfort of being among people of my own type, my own kind. My family.” Yet there’s no way out. People are dying around him, and yet it feels better to live among them. And then the first AZT becomes available…
George is there for others, AIDS patients who need help in the hospitals. He gives massages and distributes meals. He sits beside their beds. Everything has its limits, and in order to survive in the heart of misery, George seeks relief in crystal meth. “Fortunately I got busted by the police for possession of crystal meth. At the time a horrible thing, but looking back, it was the best thing that could have happened to me. 1994 was the last time I used it.”
The turning point comes in 1996/1997 when HIV is reclassified from a terminal disease to a chronic disease. This creates a new challenge: George can train for the full marathon, and in 1998 he finishes. Completely exhausted, he almost gives up three times, but he finishes. For the first time since he was 22, he arrives at the idea that he’ll stay alive. “I wasn’t planning on living. I was planning on dying my whole life since I was 22”.
Now in 2018 George works at the Harvey Milk School, where together with other volunteers he has been helping children in the classroom for years. Energy radiates from him, and George shines.
Today is our team’s last day in San Francisco, and by coincidence it’s George’s 58th birthday. “I’m just so happy where I am in life and I’m so glad to have made it this far.”