University of Kentucky's Chandler Medical Center Gets Grant for HIV/AIDS Research

The University of Kentucky's Chandler Medical Center has received a three-year, $1.5 million grant to expand health care services for patients with HIV/AIDS. The federal grant from the US Department of Health and Human Services, announced at a news conference on Monday, will allow the Lexington-based university's Division of Infectious Diseases to increase the number of HIV patients who receive treatment and access to the hospital's AIDS clinic.

"This is very exciting because it truly will improve the way we're able to care for all the needs of our patients," said Dr. Claire Pomeroy, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and associate chief of staff at UK Hospital. The grant will allow the hospital to offer a broader array of services, including nutrition, mental health and substance abuse counseling, oral health care and translation services for Hispanic patients. The medical center's HIV/AIDS clinic currently treats about 490 patients. More than 1,200 people in central and eastern Kentucky have HIV and, of that number, about 480 are living with AIDS. Hundreds and possibly thousands more may have HIV and either not know it or refuse to seek treatment out of fear of discrimination, said Dr. Alice Thornton, an assistant professor of infectious diseases.

Treating HIV/AIDS can present different challenges in different geographic regions, Pomeroy said. "We really have two populations we serve here in Kentucky," she said. "There's the patients from the urban centers and those from the rural parts of the state. One thing I've learned as a physician is that rural AIDS can require a very different response than urban AIDS, and that special and different approaches are needed to treat the two."

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