BOSTON (WHDH) - The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is helping the state’s Department Public Health investigate an outburst of new HIV infections in Massachusetts among residents who inject drugs and experience homelessness, the agency said in a statement Thursday.
The CDC said DPH officials reached out for help after noticing a surge in new HIV cases last year in Lawrence and Lowell. DPH’s preliminary data shows 52 new HIV cases in 2017 in the northeast region among injection drug users — compared to 23 in 2016.
“We have seen an increase in the number of newly diagnosed cases of hepatitis C related to injection drug use in people under the age of 30 over the past several years and have been concerned about the potential for HIV infection following a similar course,’’ said Dr. Al DeMaria, infectious disease medical director and state epidemiologist at DPH, in a statement. “In order to fully characterize what is going on and what would be required to effectively prevent further spread of infection, we have asked for assistance from CDC. This assistance can allow a more rapid investigation by putting more investigators in the field and making further use of the capacity of CDC for advanced laboratory methods and their expertise acquired in other investigations. The sooner we can discover why these infections are happening now, the sooner we can use the most effective prevention interventions based on the evidence.”
DPH is asking the CDC to support the epidemiologic investigation and to help determine the underlying causes of these clusters of infection.
Just last week, the CDC issued guidance to local and state health departments about how to manage HIV and hepatitis C outbreaks among people who inject drugs.
This is a developing news story, stay with 7News for more information as it becomes available.
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