Trump Wants to End HIV Within 10 Years. Here ’s What That Would Take, According to Experts

About 1.1 million Americans currently live with HIV, and approximately 40,000 are infected each year, according to federal data. But in his State of the Union address, President Donald Trump promised to “eliminate the HIV epidemic in the United States within 10 years” — a plan that hinges on a multi-agency push for better diagnosis, treatment and prevention in at-risk communities, health officials said Wednesday. Trump introduced the plan during his annual address on Tuesday but offered few details. Health officials fleshed out the plan during a call with reporters on Wednesday. The initiative will be overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and will bring together the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the Health Resources and Services Administration and the Indian Health Service. They will target 48 U.S. counties where HIV transmission is high, focusing on at-risk populations including transgender individuals, men who have sex with men and people of color. Efforts will focus on early diagnosis and treatment for people who are infected; access to proactive measures, such as the preventative drug PrEp, in vulnerable populations; and outbreak response, said Dr. Brett Giroir, Assistant Secretary for Health at HHS, on the call. The CDC and the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) 19 Centers for AIDS Research will work with local health authorities to a...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized healthytime HIV/AIDS onetime Source Type: news