A health director in Cabell County says new data shows the spread of HIV is slowing following an outbreak of the disease over the past year.
Cabell-Huntington Health Department Medical Director Dr. Michael Kilkenny spoke with the county’s Board of Health last Wednesday.
The Herald-Dispatch reports Kilkenny said that from October to January only two new HIV cases were documented in Cabell. That is down compared to the average of six cases reported per month last year.
An uptick in HIV cases have been monitored in Cabell county since 2018, and an outbreak was confirmed by March of last year. As of January 16 there were 76 confirmed cases, according to the West Virginia Bureau for Public Health. Prior to the outbreak, Cabell saw an average of eight cases per year.
Kilkenny links the slow down to an aggressive harm reduction program; however, he said the county is maintaining an emergency response level for now.
