Navajo group finds HIV/AIDS a difficult topic on reservation

Thursday, January 26, 2012  

Discussing HIV and AIDS is difficult on the Navajo Nation, advocates say.

Melvin Harrison helped create the Navajo AIDS Network in 1990. Two decades later, he said said no one on the reservation talks openly about the disease.

"In the Navajo way of life … on HIV and gay issues, nobody is understanding,” Harrison told Cronkite News.

The Navajo AIDS Network educates people about the disease, including prevention and testing. Yet Harrison said most people on the reservation associate it with men who have sex with other men.

At the Gallup Indian Medical Center near the reservation, doctors saw 35 new HIV/AIDS cases, up from 15 in 2000.

Get the Story:
Tribal members combat unspoken crisis of HIV on Navajo Nation (Cronkite News 1/25)

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