The number of new HIV infections in a rural Indiana county has grown, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The institute is working with state health leaders to control the “severe outbreak,” which has spread among users of a prescription opioid called Opana.
The outbreak has been ongoing since 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 that has 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 epicenter of the outbreak, has only one doctor who deals with infectious disease, but the doctor is not an HIV specialist, the State Department of Health said. Since the rampant HIV outbreak was first noticed in mid-December, 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 educate the population about the danger of sharing needles.
So far, 33 patients have visited the temporary clinic, which is starting to see patients return to seek treatment.
