HIV SOS: Action sought for spike in cases in West Virginia

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Dozens of volunteers formed the letters “HIV SOS” at a health event Saturday as activists seek a public health emergency declaration in a city with one of the nation’s highest spikes of such cases. After volunteers wearing red T-shirts formed the plea for help along the Kanawha River near downtown Charleston, Joe Solomon, co-founder of the nonprofit group Solutions Oriented Addiction Response, called on the City Council and Mayor Amy Shuler Goodwin to act on the HIV crisis and overdoses from prescription pain pills. “In Charleston and Kanawha County, there’s a family butchered by the overdose crisis every other day,” Solomon said. We need to treat this like the emergency that it is.” Earlier this year, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, the CDC’s chief of HIV prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, called Kanawha County’s outbreak “the most concerning in the United States.” He warned it could take years to address the surge and that the case count possibly “represents the tip of the iceberg.” Earlier this week the CDC presented preliminary findings of an investigatio n that showed emergency departments and inpatient medical personnel in Kanawha County rarely conducted HIV testing on intravenous drug users.