PRESS RELEASE: March 4, 2015
CONTACT: Lee Storrow
lee@ncaan.org
(919) 914-0311
HIV and AIDS have a serious and
unequal impact on certain communities in North Carolina, according to a report
released today by the state Department of Health and Human Services.
Approximately 36,300 people were living
with HIV in the state in 2013, the most recent year for which data are available.
North Carolina ranks eighth in the nation for new HIV diagnoses.
Communities of color and gay and bisexual
communities are hardest hit. More than 65 percent of North Carolinians living
with HIV are African American. Gay and bisexual men make up roughly 60 percent
of newly diagnosed cases.
Young men between the ages of 13 and 24
made up one in five people diagnosed with HIV in 2013. Most of these are young
men of color.
“Like many public health issues, HIV tends
to affect communities without access to comprehensive healthcare, economic
security, housing, and other basic human needs,” says Lee Storrow, executive director at the North
Carolina AIDS Action Network.
“Segregated social networks and pervasive
stigma exacerbate the issue,” Storrow says. “The good news is, we know what
North Carolina needs to do to address this epidemic.”
The state’s report highlights the success
of North Carolina’s AIDS Drug Assistance Program, which serves roughly twenty
percent of people living with HIV in the state.
Three-fourths of the clients enrolled in
the program qualify as virally suppressed, meaning they are at least 96 percent
less likely to transmit the virus to a partner and the levels of the virus in
their blood are so low as to be undetectable.
The rate of new diagnosis is also holding
relatively steady from past years.
With treatment, people diagnosed with HIV
can expect to live long and active lives.
Yet more than one quarter of individuals
living with HIV in North Carolina did not see a doctor in the last year. Only
36 percent of the overall population living with HIV in the state is virally
suppressed.
“Everyone
living with HIV or any other chronic illness should be able to see a doctor
when they need to. Our elected leaders must expand Medicaid. That one simple
step will extend health insurance to thousands of people living with and at
high risk for HIV,” Storrow said.
“Most importantly, this new report is a call
to all of us to work for the interests of the communities most affected by this
epidemic, to raise HIV as a critical issue in our state, and to stand up for
the dignity and rights of North Carolinians living with HIV and AIDS.”
The full report is available online at http://bit.ly/1Cscs11.
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The North Carolina AIDS
Action Network improves the lives of people living with HIV/AIDS and affected
communities through outreach and public education, policy advocacy, and
community-building to increase visibility and mutual support of people living
with HIV/AIDS throughout our state. Read more at www.ncaan.org.
