Posted on March 11, 2014
Source: The Baltimore Sun
Nearly three decades into the AIDS epidemic, medical professionals now have a much better understanding of the disease and how to treat it. But prevention is still the first line of defense against this devastating killer, which has already taken the lives of some 35 million people around the world, including 620,000 Americans. That is why we applaud the Maryland House of Delegates' passage last week of an expanded needle-exchange program in Baltimore City, which has been shown to drastically reduce new HIV infections among intravenous drug users. The state Senate had earlier approved a slightly different version of the same legislation, and we urge the two chambers to bring this matter to final approval before the legislature adjourns next month.
With the development of powerful new anti-retroviral drug therapies, AIDS has become a chronic but manageable illness rather than the death sentence it was when the HIV virus was first discovered. But the fight against this devastating killer is far from over. In Baltimore City, which has the fifth highest AIDS rate in the country — twice the national average — health officials are still struggling to reduce the dozens of new infections each year that allow the disease to spread.
One of the city's most effective tools to cut the HIV transmission rate has been the health department's needle-exchange program, which allows IV drug abusers to turn used needles and receive new sterile syringes in return. The program, which operates a fleet of vans to deliver clean syringes to the communities where addicts live, also offers drug treatment and counseling services for people who want to kick the habit and educates them about the risk of infection associated with using dirty needles. The outreach effort has been remarkably successful in persuading IV drug abusers, who often have little contact with the public health care system, to adopt harm-reduction strategies such as avoiding sharing needles and using a clean syringe every time.
