Source: dailymail.co.uk
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo says the state is ‘on track’ to end its AIDS epidemic by the end of 2020.
In 2018, New York had an all-time low of 2,481 new HIV diagnoses, an 11 percent decrease from 2017 and a nearly 30 percent drop from 2014.
Additionally, 32,000 New Yorkers are now taking a daily pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) pill, which drastically cuts the chances that someone who is still healthy becomes infected from risky sex or injection drug use.
More than 100,000 New Yorkers have died from AIDS-related causes since the 1980s, according to the social service organization Gay Men’s Health Crisis.
‘Five years ago we launched an aggressive, nation-leading campaign to end the AIDS epidemic in New York and to ensure every person living with HIV or AIDS gets the support they need to lead a full and healthy life,’ Cuomo said in a statement.
‘This new data shows we are on track to meet that goal and continue our historic progress to finally bend the curve on an epidemic that has taken too many lives for too long.’
In 2014, Cuomo and the state launched the Ending the Epidemic initiative, which receives about $20 million in funding annually.
The plan has a three step approach: identifying people with HIV who are undiagnosed; making sure people diagnosed with HIV keep up with their healthcare; and stopping HIV transmissions completely for people at high risk with PrEP.
PrEP users take a pill every day. The pill contains two medications, which help prevent HIV from establishing permanent infection, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Almost 32,000 New Yorkers filled at least one prescription for PrEP in 2018, a 32 percent increase from 2017.
Starting on January 1, New York will require health insurance plans to cover PrEP without co-pays.
In the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, New York City was one of the hardest hit cities in the US due to its large gay community and population of intravenous drug users.
At the height of the epidemic, there were 12,719 AIDS diagnoses in one year in 1993, according to data from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
Today, that number is close to 1,000.
In the US, more than 1.1 million people are infected with HIV. Nearly 40,000 new infections were diagnosed last year.
Once a person contracts HIV, the virus sets about attacking and destroying immune cells that normally protect the body from infection.
In the last decade, doctors have gained a much improved understanding of how to control HIV.
The rate of deaths from the disease has plummeted since the peak of the AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s.
The CDC recommend everyone between the ages of 13 and 64 be tested for HIV at least once.
Those who are at higher risk, including men who have sex with men or those who have a sexual partner who is HIV positive, should be tested as often as once a year or more.
Although HIV is treatable, the infection has no cure.
Cuomo is not the only politician to vow to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump announced his campaign to end HIV transmissions in the US by 2030 – about 10 years later than Cuomo’s goal.