The
Epidemic of Drug-Related AIDS |
PUERTO RICO |
Health Emergency in Puerto Rico
The future: thousands at risk
In the San Juan metropolitan area alone, Dr. Scott Holmberg of the Centers for Disease Control estimates there are 13,100 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 Puerto Rico to save many lives that will otherwise be lost. Nationally, ending the ban will save billions of federal health care dollars.
Web presentation co-sponsored by the Dogwood Center, the Drug Reform Coordination Network, and Safe Works AIDS Project.