News Reports Examine HIV/AIDS Services in Two California Counties

Solano County, Calif., "no longer offers HIV testing, HIV monitoring, prevention and outreach programs and AIDS case management, said [Peter Turner, supervising health education specialist for the county Department of Health and Social Services], who estimates between 1,500 and 2,000 people are living with HIV in Solano County," the Vallejo Times-Herald reports. "As we speak, there are virtually no programs," he said, noting that the approximately 500 HIV-positive prison inmates in the county are not affected. The reduction in services is a result of cuts made by the state Office of AIDS. The county "might receive some federal money," according to the newspaper (Banes, 8/30).

In Sonoma County, "budget cuts and the recession are hastening the likely closure of the HIV clinic in downtown Santa Rosa, leaving county health officials to search for options to maintain medical services that have kept people alive for two decades," the Santa Rosa Press Democrat reports. The Sonoma County HIV Clinic "and other HIV support services have for several years run the risk of losing about $1 million in annual federal funding because they do not serve the minimum required number of AIDS patients" to receive funding from the Ryan White Program, the article states. The "county has begun a review to determine how best to continue providing HIV services," the article states (Espinoza, 8/29).

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