The City of Syracuse continues an active role in joining together with community partners in the Governor’s effort to ‘End the Epidemic by 2020’ …ultimately ending the spread of HIV / AIDS. The target goal of End the Epidemic is to reduce the number of new infections from the current roughly 3,000 a year in the state to 750 or lower. Mayor Stephanie Miner’s task force is bringing together 20 healthcare and social service providers for those residents at risk.
“The first and primary role was to be a convener and to say that we have within our power as a community to end this epidemic and to focus on doing that. And then convening all of these groups together to say that we all have a role to make sure that there’s a seamless transition from prevention to making sure that we minimize if not end the spread of it. Making sure people are tested so that they know their status. Testing out the Prophylaxis (PrEP).”
Upstate University Hospital’s Nicky Jennings is an Education Specialist in Pediatric Infectious Disease. She says the efforts to get people the necessary treatment for better life outcomes in Syracuse appears to be working.
“What we do know is the amount of testing that is happening. We know that there is more HIV testing being done. We also know that we have more people on PrEP, Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis. That number is growing on a weekly basis. So certainly within the last year we’ve gone from having very few people in Syracuse taking advantage of this very effective daily pill. We’re now into the hundreds of people who are using this new prevention tool to prevent HIV.”
The PrEP medication allows those at risk or the partner of someone with HIV to protect themselves against the virus. When taken daily its 99 percent effective. Jennings says plenty of young people have very poor information about H-I-V and may not realize the threat for disease exists.
“Somebody doesn’t need the challenges associated with being HIV positive. We want to keep people HIV negative. We want to make sure that young people understand what it is, understand they should be very cautious, that they should be thinking about prevention tools like PrEP to keep them HIV negative.”
In the past year, statistics from Central New York shows that nearly 600 people who presently have HIV / AIDS were linked to healthcare management services. Mayor Stephanie Miner was the first mayor in the state to declare she would get behind ‘End the Epidemic by 2020’ goal. Anyone who needs testing or medical services for HIV / AIDS may call or text 315-571-0013.
