End of AIDS in America should be much closer

The Centers for Disease Control Director Tom Frieden sums it up nicely: Key to controlling the nation’s HIV epidemic is helping people with HIV get connected to ... care and treatment, to suppress the virus, live longer and help protect others.”

Unfortunately, 70 percent of Americans who have HIV have yet to unlock what seems to be a simple prescription for better health. And that’s important because unlike diabetes and obesity, which when left untreated harm the patient, HIV is communicable.

A new CDC study says that of the nearly 840,000 Americans with HIV who do not have their disease under control, the vast majority, 66 percent, simply aren’t getting regular care.

That means the only meaningful way to reduce the tens of thousands of new infections each year is to adequately treat the estimated 1 million Americans who have HIV. Because treatment works for them and their sexual partners. The CDC says consistent treatment “has been shown to reduce sexual transmission of HIV by 96 percent.”

The CDC report cites the same challenges in treating HIV as other diseases: poor access to health care, low socio-economic status — as well as American complacency three decades after the first confirmed U.S. case.

Yet this year there was a national panic as the CDC confirmed just four cases of and one death from Ebola. By comparison, there are around 50,000 new infections and more than 13,000 deaths from HIV in the United States every year.

The CDC says testing and treating Americans is essential “to bring an end to AIDS in America.” After 30 years, considering the medical advancements, that “end” should be closer than it is.

— Albuquerque Journal