District, NIH prepares for battle against HIV/AIDS

THE DISTRICT is getting substantial help for the first time from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in its urgent battle against the HIV/AIDS epidemic. A two-year, $26.4 million partnership aims to improve the city's ability to get people tested and into treatment. It also will give the District the data needed to track the epidemic's advance. All of this is vital in a city where at least 3 percent of the population is living with HIV/AIDS.

Under the D.C. Partnership for HIV/AIDS Progress, information from 13 health-care providers treating about 12,000 District residents living with HIV will be linked. This will give the partnership data on where the epidemic is going, how best to treat those with HIV/AIDS and whether current treatment regimes are effective. Clinics will provide care for HIV-related illnesses; the first three are already open at Family and Medical Counseling Service in Southeast, Unity Health Care's Walker Jones Health Center in Northeast and the Whitman-Walker Clinic in Northwest for the treatment of hepatitis C. And the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases will conduct two studies to better understand the effectiveness of HIV prevention efforts separately among African American women and African American men who have sex with men.

The most intriguing effort by the partnership is its implementation of the test-and-treat approach conceived by scientists at the World Health Organization (WHO) last year. Health officials know that someone who tests positive can wait at least six months before seeking treatment. In the meantime, that person possibly hasn't changed his behavior to reduce the risk of HIV transmission to others or reinfection with a more powerful strain. According to the NIH, the WHO hypothesis is that the HIV/AIDS epidemic "can be significantly curtailed through annual, voluntary HIV testing and immediate antiretroviral treatment for individuals who test positive." The District would join the Bronx in New York in evaluating whether this strategy can work over the next three years.

Making HIV testing a routine part of care has been a driving force behind the efforts of Mayor Adrian M. Fenty to get a handle on the AIDS epidemic in the city. The funding from NIH will help enormously. But what will be invaluable is the expertise to be gained from the best and brightest talent in HIV/AIDS research and treatment who are expected to flow into the city because of it.