The numbers reveal a terrifying reality.

One of every hundred people in New York is infected with the AIDS virus. But in Central and East Harlem the number of those affected goes up to one in 37.

“It is unacceptable,” said Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer yesterday. “People should not be more exposed to AIDS because they live in East Harlem than if they lived on beautiful Park Avenue.”

And the fact is that Latinos of East Harlem – also known as El Barrio – live in the zone that produces the greatest number of deaths from AIDS than any other New York neighborhood. The numbers have been known for some time, but the politicians and community leaders, who met yesterday in the crammed Dewitt Clinton community center on 116th Street, announced that they would put the brakes on the whole situation.

The activists said that employees of the Harlem United Community AIDS Center, Inc. will knock on every door at every apartment in public housing buildings to ask the residents there to take the HIV test. The residents who accept will take the saliva test in one of the association's vans, where they will also be asked about other illnesses and offered medical assistance.

“It's an innovative program,” said El Barrio city councilwoman Melissa Mark Viverito. “The information will go directly to the residents. Many of them think AIDS has nothing to do with them.”

The project, known as Blocks, will be launched at once with financing of $175,000 a year offered by a private foundation.

The difference from other anti-AIDS programs is that Blocks will help not only homosexuals and drug addicts, but any person at all who is not cataloged as at risk of contracting the disease, said the activists.

For Carmen Collazo, a 59-year-old Hispanic woman who carries the AIDS virus, the project is something essential. Collazo tested positive in a 1991 test in the Bronx and had to give up her addiction to heroin.

“It was tough. I had to choose between dying and going on living. I chose to live,” said Collazo, who lives in El Barrio. “Today I'm fine. I take my medication every day and I don't even drink coffee.”

This Hispanic woman, who works for Harlem United, dedicates herself to explaining her experience to Latinos in the area.

“I give them hope,” she added.

Of the East and Central Harlem population, 2.6 percent are living with the AIDS virus. The mortality rate in East Harlem is 32.6 percent for every 1,000 people living with the virus.

Patrick McGovern, the executive director of Harlem United, said yesterday that the AIDS virus is an El Barrio problem that needs an El Barrio solution and a change of mentality.

“Everyone is at risk,” said McGovern. “We have got to take the AIDS test the way we take cholesterol or diabetes tests.”

Harlem numbers

Central and East Harlem – where mostly African-Americans and Hispanics live – represent only a little more than 3 percent of New York's population. Nevertheless, in the year 2005 these two areas accounted for:

* More than 8 percent of new HIV diagnoses in the city.

* Over 9 percent of the AIDS diagnoses in the city.

* Almost 10 percent of all deaths related to AIDS in New York.