In December 2014, an Indiana physician performed a routine HIV test on a pregnant woman that showed she had the virus. The expecting mother was one of the first in a cluster of new HIV cases in southern Indiana that would quickly grow in a tight-knit community of drug users who shared needles.
At its peak of 22 new people diagnosed each week, up from just three new cases between 2009 and 2013, the Indiana epidemic was the worst HIV outbreak ever to happen in rural America. And medical professionals say it could be the canary in the coal mine of HIV outbreaks in rural communities across the US.
The cause of the Indiana epidemic – centered around Austin, Indiana, where 10 percent of the 4,200 residents inject opioids – was addiction, and the infection spread through the use of dirty needles. The solution, public health officials say, was a needle exchange, the use of preventative drug Truvada, and a successful HIV-prevention strategy first implemented on Vancouver’s addiction-afflicted Downtown Eastside.
That Canadian strategy garnered headlines this week after the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS announced it had secured funding to continue the program in Indiana.
It was back in March 2014 when acclaimed HIV researcher Dr. Julio Montaner got the call from Indiana. Health practitioners urgently needed to implement the successful strategy he had tested in Vancouver.