ALBANY, N.Y.—A group of doctors, public health experts, and community advocates met Tuesday to launch an effort to end New York’s three-decade AIDS epidemic—a goal that not long ago would have seemed unthinkable.
The ambitious initiative aims to reduce the number of new HIV infections to 750 per year by 2020—about the same number of cases of tuberculosis seen in New York City each year.
By comparison, 3,000 new HIV cases are expected this year, and 14,000 new cases were reported in 1993.
The task force was created by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and will review ways to expand prevention and access to testing and treatment, with a focus on at-risk groups.
The epidemic will be considered over when the number of new cases diagnosed annually falls below the number of AIDS deaths.
“If we do our job well we will have not only ended AIDS but we will have helped make New York a better place, a place where those cast to the margins find themselves at the center of our care and concern,” said task force co-chairman Charles King, a longtime AIDS activist who is co-founder and CEO of Housing Works, a New York City organization that fights AIDS and homelessness.
New HIV cases in New York have dropped nearly 40 percent in the last 10 years because of better, faster tests; access to condoms; public outreach campaigns, and other initiatives.
Meanwhile, those with the disease are living longer thanks to significantly more effective treatments.
The state now plans to make it easier to get tested, change how HIV cases are tracked to ensure patients continue to receive treatment, and promote the wider use of “pre-exposure” drugs that can help high-risk people avoid infection.
The state is also working with drug companies to bring down the cost of drugs that fight the infection.
“HIV/AIDS has plagued families across this state for too long,” said Cuomo, who announced his administration’s plan last summer. “Together we are going to put an end to this epidemic.”
New York once had the worst rates of HIV infection in the country. State Health Commissioner Howard Zucker said that if the state is successful, new infections would be rare and “those living with the disease will have normal lifespans with few complications.”
Ending the epidemic would also save an estimated $300 million now spent each year on treatment and services for those with HIV.
From The Associated Press
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