FOLEY, Ala. — While the number of HIV/AIDS cases in other parts of the country have stayed the same or declined, not so in the southeastern U.S. HIV/AIDS continues to rise here.

Maureen Nichols, a nurse practitioner who is the HIV/AIDS program coordinator in Public Health Area IX for the Alabama Department of Public Health, said the socio-economic factor and the large black population continues to make HIV/AIDS a serious matter in the south.

Nichols works for the Clarke County Public Health Department in Grove Hill. Clarke is one of eight counties that constitute PHA IX. The others are Baldwin, Butler, Conecuh, Covington, Escambia, Monroe and Washington.

According to statistics released by the Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH), 797 cases of HIV/AIDS are known in PHA IX. Of that total number, 397 (49.81 percent) are in Baldwin. Those figures are cumulative as of March 31, 2009.

“Baldwin makes up half the population of the whole area (PHA IX), so automatically it has half the cases,” Nichols said this week.

From Jan. 1, 2008, to Dec. 31, 2008, Baldwin reported 17 new cases of HIV/AIDS, nearly 55 percent of the 31 total new cases reported in PHA IX during the same period.

As of July 1, 2009, 7,101 HIV infections and 9,445 AIDS cases had been reported to ADHP, according to the agency’s Web site. While African-Americans make up 26 percent of Alabama’s population, 63.8 percent of all reported HIV/AIDS cases in the state come from this group. That represents 10,548 cases, according to ADPH.

African-American males represent 44.5 percent of all HIV/AIDS cases reported, while African-American females represent 19.2 percent of all cases reported.

Regarding African-Americans, Nichols said researchers are looking at the genetic makeup of African-Americans and trying to determine if a genetic component that once aided in survival by protecting them from malaria also makes them more susceptible to HIV, the viral infection that causes AIDS.

That research has been well-documented, and researchers say the genetic trait could account for 11 percent of HIV cases in Africa, the continent hit hardest by the AIDS epidemic. Researchers also say the genetic trait could make HIV infection 40 percent more likely in African-Americans.

One study that isn’t as well known is that being carried out by Sangamo Biosciences and the University of Pennsylvania that involves genetically modified T-cells.

According to the U.S. National Institutes of Health and ClinicalTrials.gov, the research involves an agent called a “Zinc Finger Nuclease” or ZFN, a protein that can delete another protein called CCR5. The CCR5 protein is required for “certain common types of HIV” to enter and infect T-cells, one of the white blood cells that fight the HIV virus.

“The most important T-cells are those called ‘CD4 T-cells,’“according to ClinicalTrials.gov.

This study, which was recruiting participants earlier this month, will isolate T-cells, deliver the “zinc fingers” using a viral vector, and see if the ZFNs “knock out” the CCR5 protein. The T-cells are then returned to the infected subject. Researchers hope to find out if the “zinc finger” modified T-cells are safe for humans and how the modified T-cells affect HIV.

CD4 T-cells modified with “zinc fingers” have been shown in laboratory studies to prevent HIV from killing CD4 T-cells. The hope is that “zinc fingers” will allow CD4 T-cells to survive longer and thus improve the immune system of an HIV-infected person.

The completion date for this study is projected for March 2011, according to ClinicalTrials.com.

In Alabama’s PHA IX the next highest number of cases behind Baldwin County is Escambia with 97 cases, followed by Butler with 62 and Covington with 61.

Montgomery County has a total of 1,953 cases, Mobile County has 2,623, and Jefferson County 4,633.

Among the African-American population in Alabama with HIV/AIDS, the risk factors break down this way according to ADPH: men who have sex with men (36.3 percent); injecting drug use (12.7); heterosexual sex (34.2); men having sex with men/injecting drug use (4.9); maternal transmission (1), hemophilia (0.2); undetermined (16.73).