(Photo courtesy LGBT Free Media Collective, from Wikimedia Commons)
Florida is famous for its endless summers, turquoise beaches and theme parks; however, Florida is becoming known as something else: “the new U.S. epicenter of HIV.”
As the third-largest state in the U.S., with a population of 21.5 million, Florida is also the region with the highest new HIV infection rate.
Data released in 2021 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that more than 50% — 18,500 people — of the estimated 35,000 new HIV infections in the U.S. in 2019 were in the South.
In 2020, Florida reached the number of 114,000 people diagnosed with HIV, of which more than 4,000 were new cases. This alarming increase in HIV infections has several companies joining together to try and combat these numbers.
CVS Health has partnered with Gilead Sciences to offer free HIV screenings in the Orlando-metro area through July 13, and Walgreens has partnered with The University of Miami to create an HIV testing and prevention rapid access clinic in Miami Beach.
Professor of medicine at the University of Miami Medical School, director of the Center for HIV and emerging Infections and co-director of the Center for AIDS research, Dr. Mario Stevenson, says Florida has five of the 20 hot-spot cities with the highest HIV infection in the country: Miami, Jacksonville, Palm Beach, Tampa and Orlando.
“Miami is the epicenter of the epicenters of the AIDS pandemic in the U.S.,” Stevenson says. “And different factors are causing this problem.”
Stevenson and Drexel A. Shaw, National HIV Liaison for CVS Health Pharmacy, say one aspect of the fight that needs to be addressed is how the communities most effected by the HIV infection rate increase in the state traditionally suspect and mistrust the messages that health care organizations send them.
“We need to tailor the delivery method,” Stevenson says. “Starting by having people that speak their language in the health department, for example.”
Stevenson says that another reason for the high number of infections in the state is the millions of tourists that come to Florida and have sex while they are here, some not even aware they are HIV Positive.
He says the state has strategies to bring the pandemic under control, but it will take work from many different organizations, including health care insurances, health departments and political involvement.
Stevenson and Shaw say there are several underserved areas by health care agencies in Florida, leaving many people without access to the HIV prevention messages that other better-served areas have. Both say making the tools for preventing HIV infection easily accessible is vital, such as the initiatives that both health pharmacies took, especially for those on vacation, who usually do not know where to go if they need help.
“Here, at the University of Miami, we just formed a partnership with Walgreens,” Stevenson says. “To create a PrEP Clinic in Miami Beach, one of the epicenters of AIDS in the U.S. we offer counseling, PrEP, STD testing and wraparound services. Everything free.”
Brad McElya, Director of Specialty Health Solutions at Walgreens Pharmacy, has been with the company for over 20 years and has overseen Walgreens HIV treatment and prevention efforts for four years.
McElya says that during the COVID pandemic, HIV testing fell around 50%, what can be a problem due to the high number of infection.
“One in seven individuals living with HIV in the United States do not know that they’re living with HIV,” McElya says. “If they don’t know that, they can’t get into treatment, and if they don’t get into treatment, they can consistently transmit HIV to other individuals.”
The partnership with the University of Miami is one way Walgreens is continuing to overcome barriers to therapy for individuals within the community. McElya says the location is a prime area because there is a Walgreens pharmacy right across the clinic, where individuals can walk in and test for HIV, and depending on the results, they can either get into treatment or start taking PrEP. Everything is within the same block.
“This proximity is essential,” he says, because individuals were abandoning their PrEP prescriptions, and he believes that the clinic and the pharmacy being next doors will help to avoid that.
When treatments and medications first became available for those living with HIV, obtaining them were extremely complex. Nowadays, while there are still challenges, it is more accessible and scientists have created medicines that have fewer side effects and are easier and safer to use.
Men ages 13-34 made up most new HIV diagnoses among all gay and bisexual men. Mar Cury, a 32-year-old health worker, got infected in 2015 after having sex only once with someone he met on Grindr.
“I was the top and wore a condom,” Cury says, “but it broke in the middle of the sex.”
After feeling pain to urinate, Cury sought a Latin community organization for help because he did not have health insurance. Later, after receiving the HIV positive result, he got enrolled in the Ryan White program, a federally funded program that assists with the cost of medical care and related services for people living with HIV disease.
According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, in 2020, Almost 38 million people worldwide were living with HIV. In the U.S., CDC estimated 1.2 million people with the virus at the end of 2019, of which 120 thousand were in Florida. The cases dropped by six thousand the following year; however, it was still high.
HIV is a long-term medical condition that can cause severe problems if not treated properly. However, it is not a death sentence. With scientific advances in treatment, an HIV Positive person can live a long and healthy life, and testing is the first step to start that treatment.
“Working together,” Shaw says, “we can end this epidemic.”
