HIV cases spiking among Boston homeless

HEALTH OFFICIALS have identified a growing cluster of 134 HIV cases primarily among homeless people who inject drugs in the Boston area, a worrying sign for health officials who several years ago were talking about a goal of eradicating new HIV cases in the state.

“What we see is not only HIV transmission occurring, but the data indicates that we continue to see active clusters,” said state Sen. Julian Cyr, a Truro Democrat who chairs the Joint Committee on Mental Health, Substance Use, and Recovery.

Since the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic nationally in the 1990s, education, harm reduction efforts, and advances in medicine have significantly reduced the prevalence and toll of the disease.

In Massachusetts in 2000, there were nearly 1,200 new cases of HIV diagnosed and more than 350 deaths. By 2007, the number of new cases dropped below 800 for the first time that decade and deaths dipped below 300. Between 2009 and 2013, the number of new cases diagnosed each year hovered around 700, and that number dropped to an average of 640 for the five-year period after that. Most cases since 2009 have been transmitted by sex between men.

Read more: https://commonwealthmagazine.org/drug-addiction/hiv-cases-spiking-among-boston-homeless/