Officials with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the District on Monday announced a two-year, $26.4 million effort to combat HIV/AIDS that will incorporate new approaches to prevention and treatment. The District has the nation's highest HIV/AIDS prevalence rate - 3 percent - and the initiative will focus heavily on African Americans, who comprise 76 percent of Washington's 15,000 cases.
"This comprehensive collaboration will generate fresh ideas, new services, and technical knowledge to assist the city in preventing new infections and improve health care services for all residents living with HIV/AIDS," said Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, who joined Anthony S. Fauci, director of NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), in making the announcement.
NIAID will work with the city's Department of Health and its largest health care providers to reduce HIV viral loads in patients, expand HIV testing, modernize patient records, and improve treatment for diseases like diabetes and hepatitis that can cause death in HIV patients.
Based on a World Health Organization study, aggressive treatment as a form of HIV prevention is a novel approach. Fauci cautioned that it is still unknown whether reducing the viral load in the District's infected population will reduce disease transmission. A similar effort is underway in the Bronx.
In addition, two studies by the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services will research the behaviors of the most at-risk groups: gay black men, who make up the largest number of cases, and black heterosexual women, whose new infection rates are rapidly increasing.
A heterosexual behavior study that accompanied the city's 2008 Epidemiology Update found that majorities of the black men and women at greatest risk thought their partners were having sex with other people, said they themselves often had unprotected sex with other partners, and did not know their own HIV status.
01/12/10
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: District, NIH Announce New Initiative Aimed at HIV/AIDS Epidemic
Source: Washington Post:: Darryl Fears; Courtesy of the CDC National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention