Indiana Governor Mike Pence has declared a public health emergency in Scott County after the state health officials recorded 79 HIV cases linked to intravenous opiate drug use since January. Scott County usually sees around 5 cases of HIV in an year.
Announcing a 30-day needle exchange program to stop the spread of the epidemic, Pence said, “This is not a Scott County problem. This is an Indiana problem. The state will set up an incident command center to coordinate HIV treatment and substance abuse treatment. The Indiana State Department of Health will supervise a short-term needle exchange program for the sole purpose of containing the epidemic. The people of Scott County are working hard to address this crisis, and with additional state resources and new tools provided by this emergency declaration, I am confident that together we will stop this HIV outbreak in its tracks”.
There is pressure in Indiana to make needle exchange programs legal. Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear signed a bill recently that included a provision for needle exchange programs. However, Pence is not in favour of making needle exchanges an ‘anti-drug policy’; he added that he temporarily suspended the state law and his own anti-drug policies to implement the short-term needle exchange program for addicts since ‘this is a public health emergency’. He does not intend to extend the program if the outbreak continues to get worse.
Indiana has seen an increase in the use of a powerful painkiller called Opana. The number of deaths related to opioids like Opana rose from 200 a year in 2002 to 700 in 2012, according to the Indiana State Department of Health. There’s weak public health infrastructure to prevent the HIV infection from spreading in Scott County which is just one of five counties serviced by a single HIV testing clinic.
