As southern Indiana struggles to stop the spread of HIV, providing testing and education have become a priority for Scott County. The county's health department doesn't offer free HIV testing and just last week, the Midwest AIDS Training and Education Center sent representatives to Scott County to educate community members about HIV.
In Howard County, educational outreach and free HIV testing are one of the regular services the Howard County Health Department provides.
Although there was a steady decline in the number of new cases of AIDS and HIV reported in Indiana from 2002 to 2012, according to the Indiana State Department of Health, newly diagnosed cases began trending up from 2011 to 2012.
How 2015 stacks up, as the state works to curb the startling increase in infections, remains to be seen.
Jane McIntyre has spent the past two decades as the Howard County Health Department health educator, informing residents about the transmission of HIV and its effects.
“With an HIV presentation, we include transmission, risk behaviors and treatment,” McIntyre said. “The more education has been out there over the years, the more young people have been educated at school and that’s good.”
Jennifer Sexton, head of public nursing at the Howard County Health Department, said increased Internet access also has helped more people learn about HIV.
“Younger people are getting a lot more information about HIV and they’re getting it from different sources than they used to,” she said.
When talking with people about HIV, McIntyre said she still encounters misconceptions about how the disease is spread.
“Some people are misinformed about how it is and isn’t transmitted, especially in casual contact,” she said.
Human immunodeficiency virus is a disease with many stages that eventually leads to AIDS, where other diseases and infections enter the body because of its weakened immune system. HIV is transmitted through semen, vaginal fluids, blood and breast milk. It is not passed by donating blood, having casual contact with someone who is HIV positive, nor through tears, saliva, sweat, urine or mosquitoes.
McIntyre shares that information through monthly presentations at the Howard County jail (which don’t always focus solely on HIV), Open Arms women’s shelter, the Kinsey Youth Center and for any other group that requests one.
The Health Department offers free HIV testing every Monday from 9 to 11 a.m. and 1 to 3 p.m. Department staff also do off-site outreach testing at the Howard County health fair and at Indiana University Kokomo each year.
Of the 197 people the Health Department tested in 2014, fewer than five tested positive for HIV, which Sexton said is about average.
Fewer people have come to the health department for testing over the years, and Sexton thinks the trend is because more people are getting tested by their primary care doctors instead. Physicians file HIV testing reports directly with the state, Sexton added, so the health department doesn’t get a total count of how many HIV tests are done in the county each year.
“People are more comfortable getting that done with their private physicians than they used to be,” she said.
HIV testing can be done with an oral swab or by pricking your finger, and it takes about 20 minutes to get results. The health department also offers free condoms and educational materials to teach people about safe sex and what the next steps are after getting HIV test results. Testing can be done anonymously, and results and counseling are completely confidential.