Each year the injection-related AIDS epidemic in Nevada affects more people.
In order to slow the spread of AIDS among persons who inject drugs in Nevada
and elsewhere, the Clinton Administration urgently needs to end the federal
ban on funding clean needle programs.
Health Emergency in Nevada
- Through the end of 1996, some 900 Nevada residents age 13 and over
had injection-
related AIDS or had died from it.
- Nevada has the twelfth highest injection-related AIDS rate in the nation.
- Thirty percent of all AIDS cases in Nevada are injection-related.
The crisis among African Americans
- Through the end of 1996, some 310 African Americans living in Nevada
had injection-
related AIDS or had died from it.
- The rate of injection-related AIDS cases among blacks in Nevada is
9 times higher
than the rate for whites.
The future: thousands of all races at risk
in Nevada
In the Las Vegas metropolitan area alone, Dr. Scott Holmberg of the
Centers for Disease Control estimates there are 16,500 uninfected persons
who inject drugs and who thus are at risk of getting HIV.
Saving lives and saving tax dollars
Each AIDS illness and death exacts an uncountable cost in human pain
and suffering. Each AIDS illness and death has a very countable cost in
dollars. Using sophisticated mathematical models, a University of California
team of investigators estimates that it costs between $4,000 and $12,000
in clean needle program expenses for each HIV infection averted over a
five-year period. This is, of course, far lower than the estimated $119,000
lifetime cost of treating an HIV-infected person.
Lifting the ban on federal funding of clean needle programs will
permit communities in Nevada to save many lives that will otherwise be
lost. Nationally, ending the ban will save billions of federal health care
dollars.
Prepared by the Dogwood
Center, PO Box 187, Princeton, NJ. Tel: 609-924-4797. Fax: 609-252-1464.
email: [email protected] The information
on population and on injection-related AIDS cases for persons age 13 and
over is from special tabulations from the Census Bureau and the Centers
for Disease Control. Injection-related AIDS cases include AIDS cases among
the following risk groups: heterosexual persons who inject drugs; men who
have sex with men and inject drugs; and the heterosexual sexual partners
of persons who inject drugs.
Web presentation co-sponsored by the Dogwood
Center, the Drug Reform Coordination Network,
and Safe Works AIDS Project.
Join DRCNet