"We do HIV testing based on risk factors. The Terre Haute clinic provided 150 HIV tests and 392 tests for gonorrhea and chlamydia in the same time frame. The centers also performed 27,000 tests for gonorrhea and chlamydia, said spokeswoman Tammy Lieber. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, which has 23 health centers in Indiana (including Terre Haute) and two in Kentucky, conducted more than 8,000 HIV tests between Jto June 30, 2014. In Terre Haute, several sites offer HIV testing, and representatives hope to increase awareness about the importance of testing, especially for those involved in high-risk behavior, including those who have multiple sex partners, have unprotected sex or share needles to inject drugs.
In southeastern Indiana, primarily Scott County, 142 new HIV cases have been reported since December, prompting the intervention of the state Department of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That person is not currently a threat, officials say.
HIV is making headlines in Indiana, with a serious outbreak in Scott County in the southeastern part of the state and last week's revelation that someone in Vigo County has knowingly spread HIV to others in the community. Treatment usually involves several drugs combined in one pill the drugs kill the virus (lower the viral load) and increase the immune cell count, Koj said.ĪIDS is defined by the presence of opportunistic infections or a significant decrease of CD4 (immune cell) count to below 200. Those who are HIV positive must continue with treatments to keep the disease from advancing. "We should always educate patients that the risk of transmitting the disease is lower when you are undetectable, but the virus could still be present in some components of the blood," he said. Once a person is diagnosed as HIV positive, the person will always be HIV positive, and the risk of transmission remains, Koj said. Even with an undetectable viral load, an HIV-positive person still has the virus.
"Those patients usually do very well," he said.īut "undetectable" does not mean "cured." An undetectable viral load means that so few copies of the virus are present in the blood that monitoring tests are unable to detect them. He's had patients "undetectable" for 17 years. Patients diagnosed as HIV positive can become "undetectable" within a few months of starting treatment and remain "undetectable" for the rest of their lives, he said. He has worked with patients since 1999 who are HIV positive, and "they are still doing OK." If they continue their treatments, they can live long, healthy lives. The lifespan and prognosis for someone with HIV "depends on the patient and compliance and adherence with the treatment," he said. Continuing advancements in drug therapy "have improved the outcome and decreased the mortality rate," he said.
The prognosis improved thanks to the development of HAART, or highly active antiretroviral therapy, which involves the use of multiple drugs or "cocktails" that act on different viral targets.
#Dr imad koj full#
"We used to have wards full of patients in the hospitals when I was training in New York." When the epidemic began, "We didn't have any treatments at that time," he said. He is an infectious disease specialist who has practiced in the community since 1999. Imad Koj, a Terre Haute internist who works with patients who are HIV positive, told the Tribune-Star ( ). (AP) - Treatment of HIV positive patients has come a long way since the early 1980s, when it was considered a death sentence.īecause of advancements in medicine, today, "It's an outpatient disease," Dr. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use.
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