HIV infections increasing in rural Indiana county
The number of new HIV infections in a rural Indiana county has grown, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports.
The institute is working with state health leaders to control the “severe outbreak,” which has spread among users of Opana, a prescription opioid.
The outbreak started in mid-December. As of Friday, 142 people have tested positive for HIV, with 136 confirmed cases and six more with preliminary positive test results, all in rural Scott and Jackson counties. This is a huge number of cases for an area with a population of only a few thousand people.
The CDC and state health leaders held a news conference Friday to talk about the new numbers and about the growing threat of the spread of disease from IV drug use, especially in isolated rural areas that have sparse health resources.
Scott County, the outbreak’s epicenter, has only one doctor who treats infectious disease, but the doctor isn’t an HIV specialist, the state Health Department said. Since the rampant HIV outbreak was first noticed, the state has tried to flood the area with additional resources.
Indiana declared a public health emergency in that county in March.
Indiana University has sent health volunteers to provide a clinic, open once a week, to help treat people and test them for HIV. These workers are also going door to door to try to explain the danger of sharing needles.
So far, 33 patients have visited the temporary clinic, which is starting to see patients return to seek treatment.
It’s no coincidence that many of the cases of the newly infected there are younger people “who weren’t around in the ’80s and ’90s when HIV was at its peak,” Dr. Jonathan Mermin said.
Mermin directs the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention. Education will be key, he emphasized. Indiana Gov. Mike Pence also signed a 30-day executive order that allows for a needle exchange. It was set to expire Friday, but he extended the order another 30 days Tuesday.
CNN