The
Epidemic of Drug-Related AIDS |
VIRGINIA |
Health Emergency in Virginia
The crisis among African Americans and Latinos
The future: thousands of all races at risk in Virginia
For Virginia's major metropolitan areas, Dr. Scott Holmberg of the Centers for Disease Control estimates that the number of uninfected persons who inject drugs and who thus are at risk of getting HIV as follows:
Norfolk |
7,600 |
|
Richmond |
7,600 |
|
TOTAL |
15,200 |
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 Virginia 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.