N.Y. governor unveils plan to fight HIV

Jul 1 2014

The goal, the governor says, is to reduce new HIV infections to 750 per year by 2020 through aggressive treatment and testing.

The New York Times: Cuomo Plan Seeks To End New York's AIDS Epidemic
Borrowing an idea from leading AIDS researchers, the Cuomo administration said on Friday that it had developed a plan to aggressively identify, track and treat people with H.I.V. infection with the aim of reducing new infection to the point that by 2020, AIDS would no longer reach epidemic levels in New York State. ... The state's acting health commissioner, Dr. Howard Zucker, said on Friday that he believed that by 2020, New York could reduce its annual incidence of new H.I.V. infections to about 750 from the current 3,000, bringing the number of new cases below the number of annual deaths, or as he put it, "bending the curve" in the direction of ending the epidemic in the state (Hartocollis, 6/28).

The Wall Street Journal: Cuomo Unveils New Effort To Reduce HIV/AIDS Cases
The plan calls for more aggressive testing, treatment and tracking of the disease. "The state of New York was ground zero of HIV/AIDS when the crisis hit 30 years ago," Mr. Cuomo said in remarks before walking in New York City's gay-pride parade. "It's fitting that New York could be the state that is the most aggressive in eradicating the disease" (Vilensky, 6/30).

The Associated Press: Cuomo: Boost HIV Tests, Treatment To End Epidemic
New York state can end its three-decade HIV crisis by the year 2020, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Sunday as he announced an ambitious plan to deliver a knockout blow to the epidemic by boosting testing, reducing new infections and expanding treatment. The governor said the state is aiming to reduce new HIV diagnoses to 750 by the end of the decade -- about the same number of tuberculosis cases seen in New York City each year -- down from 3,000 expected this year and 14,000 new cases of the disease in 1993 (Klepper, 6/29).

In the meantime, ex-inmates with the virus struggle to rejoin society --

The Associated Press: Many Challenges Face Ex-Inmates Living With HIV
Several times each month, a white bus picks up newly released ex-inmates at New York's Rikers Island jail complex and drives into Harlem, where helping hands await at a transition program run by a nonprofit called the Fortune Society. These new arrivals face the myriad challenges confronting anyone leaving jail or prison -- and a daunting additional one. They have HIV (Crary, 6/28).