After the coronavirus pandemic prompted orders to stay at home across the country, many people stopped testing for other conditions – including HIV. Now that the country is reopening, public officials are crediting a sudden outbreak of HIV in Boston for increased testing.
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“It’s amazing that we have as many cases as we have,” said Jennifer José Lo, medical director of the Boston Public Health Commission. Boston Globe. “It’s not easy to transmit HIV. It is a very preventable disease, very treatable … It has an impact on a community that is already facing many significant challenges. ”
The initial outbreak of HIV / AIDS in the 1980s hit the LGBTQ + community hard, especially gay and bisexual men of color, who had previously been marginalized and discriminated against for sexuality. coronavirus pandemic aggravated these inequities. Today, 4 out of 10 transgender women in several major cities they live with HIV, which is disproportionately widespread in black and indigenous communities, as well as in the Hispanic community.
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However, the outbreak in Boston is primarily among people who inject drugs and do not have stable housing, public health officials told The Boston Globe, and it is accompanied by a recent increase in both fentanyl and human consumption. without shelter. However, in all these populations, stigma has proved to be a major barrier to alleviating the crisis.
“It’s an indicator of how well we treat marginalized communities,” Joshua Barocas, an infectious disease specialist at Boston Medical Center, told the Boston Globe, saying pre-pandemic efforts were already short. “It simply came to our notice then. And it is associated with the fact that we do not insure the most vulnerable ”.
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