HIV Report

Ingham County HIV rate second highest in Michigan

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Ingham County continues to have the second highest rate of HIV in Michigan, according to the 2013 epidemiology report on HIV released last week by the Michigan Department of Community Health.

Ingham County has had the second or third highest rates for the last eight years.

In 2013 there were 171 cases per 100,000 in Ingham County.

The highest is in Wayne County with 411 per 100,000.

Ingham County is in a cluster of several counties ranging from 171 to 120 cases per 100,000.

“None of this is to diminish the concerns about this in any way,” said Linda Vail, the health officer for Ingham County, “but there are a group of counties in a similar prevalence area. All of them are above 90, which is a bad thing.”

In Ingham County, Vail says 20 people were diagnosed with HIV in 2013.

Among those, eight were men who have sex with men, one more was a man who has sex with men and injects drugs, and the remainder were among other risk groups. Also, Ingham’s identified cases skew slightly older than the state. Two of the cases were in 20-24 year-olds, six of the cases were in the 25-29 age group, three were between 30 and 34. The remaining nine cases are spread out through the 35 and older age groups.

Statewide, 794 new cases of HIV were identified and reported to the state health department. Of those, 29 percent were ages 13-24 – pointing toward a national trend showing the epidemic is spreading among young people. Of those youth in the newly diagnosed category, 66 percent were infected via men who have sex with men behavior, according to the state.

“This, in Michigan, and nationally is a very at-risk demographic for HIV infection,” says Angela Minicuci spokeswoman for MDCH.

Forty-nine percent of the new cases were among men who have sex with men, 4 percent among intravenous drug users, 2 percent among men who have sex with men who also inject drugs, and 14 percent among heterosexuals.

A troubling number revealed in the reports: 26 percent of identified cases were co-diagnosed as HIV-positive, as well as stage 3 of the disease, commonly referred to as AIDS. Co-diagnosis points to a late diagnosis, which means the person has been living for HIV for some time – usually years. Studies show that those people who are infected, but don’t know it, are more likely to transmit the infection.

In good news, the report revealed the lowest number of AIDS-related deaths since 1985.

Todd Tennis, an Ingham County commissioner and a member of the health policy committee of that body, notes Ingham has been at or near the top of prevalence numbers for years, and the health department has been working to raise awareness on the disease.

He said, however, the advent of PrEP, pre-exposure prophylaxis, is a game changer.

PrEP is a once day dose of the anti-HIV drug Truvada taken to prevent infection. Studies have placed the real world efficacy of the drug – when taken daily – at 92 percent. A mathematical model of daily use of the drug places efficacy at 99 percent.

“With the new PrEP drug, this is the biggest breakthrough this disease has seen since the new drugs were released which made HIV a manageable chronic disease, instead of a death sentence,” Tennis said.

Read the full report: http://www.michigan.gov/documents/ mdch/July_2014_full_report_465192_7.pdf


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