ATLANTA (FOX 5) — At 61, Lana Taylor has her hands full – children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and a virus called HIV/AIDS.

“That old saying that what you don’t know won’t hurt you — that is no longer true! What you don’t know will kill you! Because HIV can kill you. AIDS can kill you,” says Lana Taylor.

But in 1995, when Taylor was infected, she knew almost nothing about HIV.

“I didn’t even know that it was sexually transmitted.”

There is a new face of HIV.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says people over 50 now make up 15% of new HIV infections.

And older women - particularly African-Americans - are at especially high risk.

Then 48 and single after 20 years of marriage, Turner met a man while volunteering.

“For three months, I said, “No, no.” Because I had made a commitment to celibacy, I wanted to get to know who I was as a woman not connected to anybody, husbands, children, family, friends,” Turner says.

But, emotionally and physically worn out, Taylor was vulnerable.

“On this particular occasion, that one tender touch, that one comforting moment, melted every boundary and every decision that I had made.”

Dr. Lisa Flowers says, “a lot of them are angry, or upset, or shocked.”

Dr. Lisa Flowers, an Emory OB-GYN, says she sees it often here in her Grady Hospital clinic: women her mother’s age testing HIV positive.

“We have to assume that everyone out there can possibly have HIV and AIDS and therefore protect ourselves. And that’s the issue: the just don’t believe that they are at risk,” says Flowers.

Turner says condoms were just not a part of her world. You used protection to avoid getting pregnant, not an incurable disease.

She’d been infected for seven years - without knowing it - when she was finally diagnosed with AIDS in 2002. “My question was, “How did the virus get access?”

Neena Smith Banhead says, “you know as women we’ll put everybody in front. We’ll take care of the house, the family, the job.”

Neena Smith Bankhead, Director of Education for AID Atlanta, says women need to start taking care of themselves. She says get tested for HIV - it’s quick and easy and talk to your partner about protection before you become intimate.

“The point is that even though it may be difficult, it’s also difficult to live with HIV,” says Bankhead.

Flowers says, “I think if you’re going to start dating, you need to put a condom on. No matter what age you are, no matter what age your partner is. And if he refuses to do so, unfortunately, he is not the partner for you.”

A part of Turner’s life now is spending $2,000 a month in medication.
But she’s telling her story - for all those women out there - who think HIV can’t happen to them.

“Provide for yourself. Protect yourself. Continue to feel the way you feel about men, but know that men are human just like you are.”