With HIV infections on the rise in SC, officials eye prevention
As the number of people living with HIV in South Carolina continues to rise, state and federal health officials want to increase awareness and reduce the stigma about the virus so that more people get tested for the infection.
There were 20,000 people living with HIV in South Carolina as of the end of 2017, S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control Director Rick Toomey said Wednesday while speaking to reporters during a day-long conference with local health leaders.
“We are still seeing too many individuals newly diagnosed,” Toomey said.
According to DHEC, South Carolina received a grant earlier this year to help reduce the spread of HIV infections “through enhancements in evidence-based prevention, diagnosis, treatment and response efforts.”
The $375,000 grant is part of a national strategy aimed at ending the HIV epidemic by 2030, according to a news release from the agency.
HIV is a virus that leads to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, or AIDS. HIV attacks the body’s ability to fight infections and certain cancers. A person is diagnosed with AIDS when their immune system is seriously compromised, according to the National Institutes of Health.
From 2008 to 2017, the number of people in South Carolina living with HIV or AIDS at the end of each year has increased 30%, according to a 2018 report from DHEC.
Robert Redfield, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, said a key problem leading to the spread of the virus is that 15-20% of people with HIV don’t know they have the virus.
South Carolina ranks 11th among states, with an AIDS case rate of 15.8 per 100,000 residents in 2017. Of those newly diagnosed with HIV, 66% were African American, 22% were white and 8% were Hispanic, DHEC said.
According to DHEC’s 2017 HIV Surveillance report, the Columbia metropolitan area had the sixth highest rate in the country of new HIV diagnoses in 2016.
Overall, President Donald Trump’s administration is aiming to reduce the number of new HIV infections by 75% in the next five years, and 90% in the next 10 years, Redfield said.
Those efforts are being focused on the rural areas of seven states, including South Carolina, and Washington, D.C., San Juan, Puerto Rico, and 48 counties considered hot spots, the Washington Post reported.
Those areas account for more than 50% of new HIV diagnoses nationally, according to the Washington Post.
“Health care for a long time has been too focused on intervention. We need to transition to prevention,” Toomey said, adding state leaders need “to have that open dialogue on how we can make an impact on what’s going in our cities and in our rural areas. The same strategies we’ve had in the past will slowly get us there.”
As outreach efforts move forward, the number of diagnoses is expected to increase.
“As this program continues to go forward in the first couple years, I want the press to understand, it’s not a failure if the numbers go up, it’s a success,” Redfield said. “If we’re still going up in year three, four and five, then there are challenges.”
Once people are diagnosed, it would then allow them to receive treatment for the virus.
With that treatment, HIV patients could “live a normal life,” said State Epidemiologist Linda Bell, director of the state’s disease prevention office.
This story was originally published December 12, 2019 at 5:00 AM.
