HIV screening Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Cabell County Commission Approves Audit of Harm Reduction Program

The Cabell County Commission approved a resolution seeking an evaluation and audit of the Cabell-Huntington Health Department’s syringe exchange program.

Syringe exchanges are widely seen by public health experts as a key measure in preventing the spread of infectious diseases like HIV and hepatitis C among people who inject drugs.

“We feel that our effort has been successful while we search for people who are afflicted with this illness and get them the help they need,” said Dr. Michael E. Kilkenny, executive director of the Cabell-Huntington Health Department. “So these restrictions have had some impact on our ability to prevent disease.”

The audit of Cabell-Huntington’s program comes over a year after a new state law went into effect, Senate Bill 334, which requires programs offering syringe exchanges to host a number of other harm reduction services, force them to deny clean needles to those who don’t return with their used needles and require them to only serve clients with state IDs in order to operate.

“As a licensed entity we are fully aware that we are subject to review by not only Office of Health Facility Licensure and Certification (OHFLAC), who issues our license but also by our main granting organizations through the Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) so we are certainly open and willing,” Dr. Kilkenny said. “We are actually even eager to have an inspection and make sure that we are complying with all aspects of the law. We are hopeful that the audit will provide clarity to the county commission.”

Kilkenny noted that the Cabell-Huntington Health Department’s syringe exchange program informed national harm reduction strategies and said he sees the audit as an opportunity to show success within the program and inform local citizens about the program’s benefits.

“I think we have established the basic understanding of Appalachian injection drug use and that has been used to inform the national strategy and we have been informed by the national strategy as we work toward that 2030 goal,” Dr. Kilkenny said. “I think that is what they are looking for and I think they will better understand what it is we do and how effective it is.”

New Grant Helps Expand Healthcare to Rural Communities

A free healthcare clinic in Morgantown has received funding to continue rural community outreach in five counties.

A free healthcare clinic in Morgantown has received funding to continue rural community outreach in five counties

Milan Puskar Health Right will use the $25,000 from the Community Education Group’s Appalachian Partnership Fund to continue mobile healthcare outreach to provide COVID-19 and flu vaccines, Hep-C and HIV tests, and other healthcare support in Marion, Monongalia, Preston, Taylor, and Upshur counties.

The Appalachian Partnership Fund is made possible with support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Community Education Group (CEG) founder and executive director A. Toni Young says her organization usually focuses on substance use disorder, HIV and hepatitis across Appalachia.

“We’re looking at the HIV outbreak in West Virginia, the substance use disorder pan crisis that we’ve been experiencing, and the hepatitis C crisis,” Young said. “We call that a syndemic because we think that these things are linked.”

However, Young said CEG’s ultimate goal is to increase health resources for the most vulnerable people in the region.

“The true meaning of harm reduction is, A. meeting a person where they are, B. trying to figure out what are the services that we can offer to get you to enter into a health care system or get you to begin to think about your health in a different way,” Young said. “Maybe we can’t get you to take an HIV test today…but maybe what we can do is just get you to get a flu vaccine today.”

Community Education Group is also partnering with West Virginia Health Right in Charleston. Young said that during the pandemic, CEG received $3.5 million from the CDC, from which they were able to grant $1 million. This year, only $500,000 was secured after Congress cut COVID-19 spending.

“We’re trying to figure out how to augment and support our partners,” Young said.

Part of that support, she said, is to bring more resources into the state and into the region, especially with a potentially serious flu season on the horizon.

“We’ve had two years where the flu has really kind of been dormant,” Young said. “We don’t know kind of how it is that the flu is going to manifest itself now. So I’m going to encourage everybody to get their flu vaccination. It’s a family affair, whether you’re young or whether you’re old, whether you’re rich or whether you’re poor, everybody should be able to get access to flu vaccination.”

Federal Dollars On The Way To Help Fight Alarming HIV Outbreak In WV

West Virginia’s HIV outbreak is getting noticed by lawmakers in Washington. Earlier this week, U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito announced that $2,397,881 will go to the state Department of Health and Human Services for HIV/AIDS prevention and medical treatment.

The money would come from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, according to a news release from Manchin’s office.

A needle exchange program in Charleston was shut down in 2018 amid public outcry. Three years later, CDC officials say the city is now at the center of the most alarming outbreak of HIV in the nation.

Earlier this month, the Kanawha County Health Department said it would invest more resources into HIV testing in the county.

Report: W.Va. Response to Disease Threats Lagging

A report by two health advocacy groups says West Virginia is lagging in its approach to handling infectious disease threats.

The report released Tuesday by the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation says West Virginia met four of 10 indicators of preparedness.

     The report says West Virginia didn’t maintain or increase funding for public health programs from the 2011-12 to 2012-13 fiscal year.

     The state also has gaps in the percentage of residents vaccinated for flu and whooping cough and has no policy requiring a cervical cancer vaccine for teens.

     West Virginia did meet indicators for routine HIV screening, health facility reporting of infections and public health lab readiness.

     A Department of Health and Human Resources spokeswoman says state officials are reviewing the report.