In the lead up to World Aids Day, Saturday, December 1, local advocates spent the week marking the advances made in the treatment and prevention of HIV-AIDS.
The week also brought news that Governor Dannel Malloy will be cutting almost $270,000 in funding from AIDS prevention and outreach programs in the state as part of his across the board budget rescissions to help plug a $363 million dollar shortfall this year.
Shawn Lang with CT Aids Resource Coalition says the funding falls under the Department of Public Health. She says the loss of state funding is on top of reduced federal aid.
"The CDC has redirected HIV prevention funds to tier one areas in the country that have the highest incidence of AIDS like New York, Miami, Houston, San Francisco, Los Angeles. Connecticut is in the second tier so we've already gotten hit with a twenty-five percent reduction in federal HIV prevention dollars.
$22,862 dollars is being cut from from Needle Syringe program. Another $249,000 will be eliminated for AIDS services. Lang says the reductions will impact prevention efforts that have already been reduced in recent years.
"Department of Public Health because of other rescissions has cut back. It used to fund five syringe programs, now they're funding four. By end of June 2013, they are only going to fund three even without these rescissions. You know it's trying to piecemeal things together to keep them whole or having to let staff go."
Across the state, more than 10,500 people are known to be living with HIV and AIDS. Lang says among these cases thirty-four percent of heterorsexual women are impacted particularly black and latino women. And there are increases in newly reported cases among young gay and bisexual men of color.
Prevention and outreach has helped drug users. Lang says among this group, there's been a thirty percent reduction in contracting the disease in the last decade.
