Outbreak of cases in Lawrence, Lowell alarms officials
Boston could be next?
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Thursday, July 26, 2018
An alarming spike in HIV cases among addicts clustered in Lowell and
Lawrence has health experts warning Boston could be next with more drug
users sharing dirty needles as the opioid epidemic grows. A state
Department of Public Health report released yesterday shows an outbreak
of HIV cases in the Merrimack Valley cities and surrounding communities.
he U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention assisted in the
study that uncovered 129 intravenous drug users with HIV in the
Lowell-Lawrence area since 2015. That’s up from 11 cases in the
same area in 2014, said Kevin Cranston, DPH assistant commissioner and
director of the Bureau of Infectious Disease and Laboratory Sciences. “The
potential is there for this to occur in other regions, including
Boston,” Cranston said. “It’s an additional impact of the opioid
crisis.” Cranston said he’s been in “lockstep” with the Boston Public Health Commission on the outbreak and “all its implications.” While
overdoses remain a major concern of the opioid crisis, the HIV outbreak
is seen as an urgent threat among public health providers, Cranston
told the Herald last night “We need to take the opioid epidemic seriously,” he added, “and it warrants heightened vigilance.” The
report calls for needle exchanges — which have been started in Lowell
and Lawrence — along with more HIV testing, treatment and education, in
addition to Narcan to reverse overdoses. “We’ve been worried a lot
about opioids and knew something like this was going to happen at some
point,” said Dr. Peter Chai, medical toxicologist at the Department of
Emergency Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “There is no
magic drug to solve this. It comes down to promoting access to care and
HIV testing,” said Chai, who also does research with Boston’s HIV/AIDS
population. “The real way to contain this is to get at the core problem
of substance abuse, from mental health, trauma to homelessness.” And
while the number of drug overdoses is up dramatically in Boston,
officials say they have not yet detected a significant increase of HIV
cases caused by intravenous drug use. In Boston and the state,
HIV/AIDS cases had been on the decrease, making the spike in Lowell and
Lawrence a red flag for disease trackers. “We have a new
generation of users,” said the DPH’s Cranston, saying they shoot up
“five to 10 times a day with fentanyl” exposing themselves to dirty
needles and all the other paraphernalia that goes with high-risk
intravenous drug use. Source: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/local_coverage/2018/07/outbreak_of_hiv_cases_in_lawrence_lowell_alarms_health_experts" rel="nofollow - http://www.bostonherald.com/news/local_coverage/2018/07/outbreak_of_hiv_cases_in_lawrence_lowell_alarms_health_experts
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His lips or pen are moving.
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