Report shows slight increase in HIV diagnoses in Iowa

A new report released by the Iowa Department of Public Health highlights the need for people to get tested for HIV more regularly.

The 2013 HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report, compiled by the Iowa Department of Public Health, said that, of the 122 Iowans diagnosed with HIV in 2013, about 40 percent were considered to be late testers, meaning they had generally been infected for many years, and could have unknowingly infected others with the virus.

Jerry Harms, HIV/AIDS surveillance coordinator at IDPH, said a late tester is someone who, within a year of initially being diagnosed with HIV, actually meets the criteria for having AIDS.

'Basically, we've got people who have been out there for a while undiagnosed and they certainly have the potential to have been exposing and infecting people to the disease unknowingly,” Harms said. 'And, if they were not in care, they would tend to have a higher load of the virus and be more infective than someone who has been in care and on anti-retrovirals and whose viral load is suppressed.”

One focus of both IDPH and the Centers for Disease Control, he said, is to get people into care who haven't been in it, or have fallen out of it, and keep them in care so they are less likely to transmit the virus.

'We're really working hard when people are diagnosed to link them to care,” Harms said. 'And then once they're linked to care we are hopeful they will stay in care and adhere to antiretroviral regimens and they will reach that plateau where their virus is very much suppressed.”

Harms said IDPH is also supportive of using condoms and having fewer partners to prevent the spread of the virus.

Though the IDPH funds various outreach and testing sites for HIV throughout the year, Harms said funding for those programs has decreased recently, which has made things difficult and led to some changes in programming.

'Our prevention funding has been cut by about 50 percent - basically $1.6 million - to $. 8 million ($800,000).” Harms said, citing funding to the Iowa Department of Public Health. 'So it does make it a lot more challenging to do prevention and outreach activities.”

Though the number of diagnoses in Iowa increased by five between 2012 and 2013, Harms said the slight increase is no cause for alarm.

'Our numbers are small and so they fluctuate from year to year and it causes us to want to watch and see what next year brings,” Harms said, adding Iowa's peak was in 2009 when the state had 126 diagnoses.

'To put a different face on it, over the last few years we probably average an increase of 1.5 cases per year,” Harms said. 'If we go back to a period of time in the late 90s and early 2000s, we were actually increasing at about 2.5 or so diagnoses, so although it looks like a bump we may actually be leveling off a little bit.”

The report also shows:

'34 females were diagnosed with HIV in 2013, a slight increase from 21 in 2012

'Iowans ages 25 to 44 accounted for 44 percent of all diagnoses

'Iowans ages 45 and older made up 41 percent of all diagnoses

'Iowa youth ages 15 to 24 made up 15 percent of all diagnoses

'Diagnoses among Iowans 45 years and older reached an all-time high of 50 diagnoses last year