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is still ravaging communities at staggering rates.
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But in certain pockets of the country, unknown to most Americans, H.I.V. In fact, over the past several years, public-health officials have championed the idea that an AIDS-free generation could be within reach - even without a vaccine. In cities like New York and San Francisco, once ground zero for the AIDS epidemic, the virus is no longer a death sentence, and rates of infection have plummeted. Thanks to the success of lifesaving antiretroviral medication pioneered 20 years ago and years of research and education, most H.I.V.-positive people today can lead long, healthy lives. These patients of Sturdevant’s are the faces of one of America’s most troubling public-health crises. Pulling off his favorite Dallas Cowboys baseball cap and running a hand over his bald head, Sturdevant added softly, “Breaks my heart.” “Knucklehead,” Sturdevant whispered, as the teenager slammed the door.
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I’m proud of you.” But Marq barely said goodbye as he jumped out of the car in front of a convenience store on an avenue scattered with a pawnshop, a liquor store and several Baptist churches, and he all but admitted he was planning to spend the afternoon smoking weed and looking at Instagram. He looked up briefly when Sturdevant told him, “You’ve come a long way. The teenager slumped in the back seat, half listening, half checking his texts. As they headed to and from a doctor’s appointment and a meeting with a counselor, Sturdevant, slow-talking and patient, with eyes that disappear into his cheekbones when he smiles and a snowy beard, gently grilled him, reminding him to stay on his meds. diagnosis he received the previous spring. Sturdevant drove on another 15 minutes to pick up Marq (a shortened version of his name to protect his privacy), a teenager who was still reeling from the H.I.V. Sturdevant handed him the package, shook his hand and told him to “stay out of trouble.” After a while a young man emerged, shirtless, shrugging off sleep. Sturdevant banged on the door of a small house, its yard overgrown with weeds he knew not to leave the package on the doorstep, where it could be stolen. One of the men was H.I.V.-positive, the other negative they lived in the neighborhood locals call the Bottom, where every fifth or sixth home is abandoned, with broken windows, doors hanging off hinges, downed limbs and dry leaves blanketing front yards.
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Negotiating a maze of unpaved roads in Jackson in the company car, a 13-year-old Ford Expedition with cracked seats and chipped paint, he stopped to drop off H.I.V. If he doesn’t make these rounds, he has learned, many of these patients will not get to the doctor’s appointments, pharmacies, food banks and counseling sessions that can make the difference between life and death. Sturdevant is a project coordinator at My Brother’s Keeper, a local social-services nonprofit. Sturdevant, 52, has racked up nearly 300,000 miles driving in loops and widening circles around Jackson in his improvised role of visiting nurse, motivational coach and father figure to a growing number of young gay men and transgender women suffering from H.I.V. Early on a balmy morning last October, Cedric Sturdevant began his rounds along the bumpy streets and back roads of Jackson, Miss.