For years, West Virginia has had the nation’s highest rate of opioid drug addictions and drug overdose deaths. Now the state is wrestling with one of the nation’s highest spikes in HIV cases related to intravenous drug use. The surge is primarily around Charleston and Huntington. As recently as 2014, only 12.5% of HIV cases in West Virginia were the result of intravenous drug use. By 2019, 64.2% were, according to state health department data.
The CDC’s chief of HIV prevention recently called the outbreak in Kanawha County “the most concerning in the United States.” At a meeting of a Kanawha County HIV task force last month, he warned it could take years to address the surge. County officials plan to ramp up testing, increase public awareness and roll out mobile clinics to treat patients who may not have regular doctors or seek medical treatment on their own.