Heterosexual women have become the fastest-growing group with HIV/AIDS in Mobile County, Ala., where gay men once had the greatest number of cases. "We've seen a trend: More women, and most new cases are in the minority population," said Alfreda King, director of AIDS control for the county. King said faithful heterosexual partners usually don't consider themselves to be at risk for HIV/AIDS. "It's more prevalent in females, but it does happen to males as well."

Second only to Jefferson County, Mobile County has one of the highest cumulative HIV/AIDS populations in the state, with a total of 2,117 cases, according to the HIV/AIDS Surveillance Branch of the Alabama Public Health Department. Nearly 530 people per 100,000 in the county are infected. King said the fastest-growing AIDS population in Mobile used to be gay men. "It moves from one population to another. At first we saw an increase in gays, and they've educated themselves and are doing better. Now we've got to work on the heterosexual population," King said. Seventy percent of new cases, she estimated, occur among minorities.

Mobile AIDS Support Services, or MASS, the lead AIDS service organization in southwest Alabama and second largest in the state, is holding its annual fundraiser later this month in an effort to raise nearly $35,000 to continue serving more than 1,000 area residents who are HIV-positive, said Sherry Atchison with MASS. Cases have started to level off in recent years, said MASS Executive Director Michael Mitchell. In 2000 and 2001, nearly 120 new cases were diagnosed each year, and nearly 30 people with HIV/AIDS died. That was an improvement from 1994, when there were 143 new cases and 59 deaths in Mobile County. "We've been able to reduce the number of new infections by a significant amount in the last six years. The AIDS incidence rate for Mobile was 24.54 per 100,000 in 1995. In 2001, it was 19.06," Mitchell said.

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