Trump’s Plan To End HIV Epidemic Would Target King County

KING COUNTY, WA - President Donald Trump said at Tuesday’s State of the Union Address that he has a plan to end the HIV epidemic in the United States within 10 years, and Washington's King County figures prominently in the effort.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar called it “one of the most important public health initiatives in history.” Azar explained in a blog post how new tools allow health officials to pinpoint where HIV infections are spreading most rapidly.

More than 50 percent of new HIV diagnoses occurred in 48 counties, Washington D.C., and in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the agency says.

The hardest-hit areas, which include seven states with high rural HIV infection rates — Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kentucky and South Carolina — will get additional expertise, technology and resources, Azar wrote on the blog post.

The goal is to reduce new infections by 75 percent in the next five years and by 90 percent in the next decade.

The HHS plans to target only King County in Washington as part of the initiative.

“We have lost more than 700,000 American lives to HIV since 1981,” Azar wrote. “Within the next 10 years, we have the chance to end the HIV epidemic for the next generation.”

Public health efforts have driven the number of new HIV infections down to approximately 40,000 per year, according to the HHS. However, Azar wrote that not all populations are benefiting from these advances and stigma still surrounds HIV.

Azar also wrote that progress in reducing the number of infections has plateaued and that the opioid crisis poses a significant threat due to possible needle sharing, one of the ways that HIV infections are spread.

According to Azar, the plan will fund the following areas of action:

1. Increasing investments in geographic hotspots through our existing, effective programs, such as the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, as well as a new program through community health centers that will provide medicine to protect persons at highest risk from getting HIV.
2. Using data to identify where HIV is spreading most rapidly and guide decision-making to address prevention, care and treatment needs at the local level.
3. Providing funds for the creation of a local HIV HealthForce in these targeted areas to expand HIV prevention and treatment.

You can read more about the plan to end HIV in the United States here.

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Patch National Staffer Feroze Dhanoa contributed to this report.

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