West Virginia’s opioid epidemic is now fueling a 74-case HIV ‘cluster’ linked to needle-sharing

West Virginia’s opioid epidemic is now fueling a 74-case HIV ‘cluster’ linked to needle-sharing

  • 74 cases, including one death, have been reported in Cabell County since January 2018
  • The county has had more cases reported this year than West Virginia had in a single year since 2008
  • Most of the cases have been diagnosed among intravenous drug users who are sharing and re-using dirty needles
  • Experts say many towns don’t have the resources to address drug use and that doctors aren’t experienced in treating HIV 

An outbreak of HIV cases in a rural West Virginia county are likely driven by the opioid epidemic that has hit the Appalachian state, health officials say. 

In Cabell County – about 40 miles away from the capital of Charleston – 74 cases, including one death, have been reported since January 2018.

This year, the county has had more HIV cases than the entire state of West Virginia in a single year since 2008, according to the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources.

Officials say the majority of cases have been diagnosed among intravenous drug users who are likely sharing contaminated needles. 

Experts tell POLITICO several towns lack the resources to grapple with injection drug use and that the state has a shortage of primary care doctors who have experience diagnosing and treating HIV. 

In Cabell County in West Virginia, 74 cases of HIV, which includes one death, have been reported since January 2018 (file image)

‘The ground is fertile,’ Dr Judith Feinberg, a professor of behavioral medicine and psychiatrist at  West Virginia University’s School of Medicine, told POLITICO. 

‘This is the nightmare everyone is worried about.’ 

A report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last year revealed that drug overdose deaths soared by 10 percent in 2017, topping 70,000.

This means that, in the last 20 years, the overdose death rate has increased nearly four-fold, from 6.1 deaths per 100,000 people in 1999 to 21.7 in 2017.

West Virginia has the highest rate of drug overdose deaths involving opioids, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

As the opioid epidemic has worsened, health experts have expressed concern that intravenous drug users might spread bloodborne infections. 

This fear was first confirmed in Scott County in Indiana, where 215 people were infected with the virus that leads to the potentially deadly disease AIDS by sharing and re-using dirty needles.

In response, in September 2015, the CDC named 220 counties at risk of rapid HIV outbreaks due to ‘persons who inject drugs’.

Twenty-eight counties were identified in West Virginia, and Cabell was one of them. 

But what’s surprising about the HIV cluster in Cabell is that prevention efforts in the county have been more robust than most of West Virginia. 

In 2008, Cabell funded a needle exchange program, which provides free access to needles and syringes and places to dispose used injectors, reported POLITICO.

Such programs are quite controversial, with critics saying the practice endorses drug use and proponents arguing it reduces the risk of disease transmission. 

Cabell has also expanded testing and access to treatments like pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) pills, which cut the chances that someone who is still healthy becomes infected with HIV from risky sex or injection drug use.

Michael Kilkenny, physician director at the Cabell-Huntington Health Department, told POLITICO that about half of the at-risk population in Cabell Country has been tested, but he can’t explain the surge in cases.

‘I have no answer for that,’ he said. ‘At night, it’s what you ask when you are screaming at the sky.’  

The Cabell-Huntington Health Department didn’t immediately return DailyMail.com’s request for comment. 

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