Each year the injection-related AIDS epidemic in West Virginia affects
more people. In order to slow the spread of AIDS among persons who inject
drugs in West Virginia and elsewhere, the Clinton Administration urgently
needs to end the federal ban on funding clean needle programs.
Health Emergency in West Virginia
- Through the end of 1996, some 180 West Virginia residents age 13 and
over had
injection-related AIDS or had died from it.
- About 25 percent of all AIDS cases in West Virginia are injection-related.
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 West 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.
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