Delaware: The Untold Good News of AIDS Prevention

All the news about HIV/AIDS in Delaware is not bad, the Division of Public Health's HIV/STD/Hepatitis C program director told the 8th Annual National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day Conference in Wilmington on Feb. 7. John Kennedy offered numerous signs of progress in the fight against the disease, including:

• Free, rapid-result HIV testing is now available within 20 to 30 minutes of almost every person in the state.
  
• No mother-to-infant HIV transmission has occurred in Delaware during the past three years.
  
• New infections are declining, even as the number of tests performed annually increases. This indicates a true reduction in infections, not just a lower case count due to lack of testing.
  
• Wilmington's two-year-old pilot needle-exchange program has signed up more than 440 clients and tested 1,000 people for HIV.

Kennedy praised community-based organizations for helping public health officials make inroads against HIV. He cited estimates showing that new infections dropped from 300 in 2001 to 166 in 2008, a 44.6 percent decline. Even so, the estimates indicate that 87 Delaware residents (57 of whom are black) were infected with HIV last year by a partner who did not know he or she had the virus, pointing to the need for more testing.

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