How San Francisco Is Taking On HIV, And Succeeding

New York Times: San Francisco Is Changing Face Of AIDS Treatment

New York Times: San Francisco Is Changing Face Of AIDS Treatment

In 1992, San Francisco was home to some 2,300 new HIV diagnoses that year alone. Twenty-three years later, that number is about 300 .

In that time, a lot has changed in the world of HIV treatment and prevention, and the City by the Bay has consistently been at the forefront of that progress, creating a model that other cities and the world are attempting to replicate.

As Donald G. McNeil Jr. notes in a story published Monday by The New York Times , the World Health Organization’s newly unveiled HIV guidelines essentially mirror the approach that officials in San Francisco have taken in recent years. That approach has been credited by health officials for reducing new infections and increasing both the number of individuals with HIV who are in care and those who are taking antiretroviral drugs so regularly that their viral load is undetectable.

According to McNeil, San Francisco has achieved this through initiatives such as its “test and treat” practice, treating HIV patients with antiretroviral drugs as soon as they test positive for the virus. The city began this approach in 2010.

Three years later, as soon as the Food and Drug Administration approved its use as an HIV treatment, the city began offering the preventive drug program PrEP -- the pill Truvada -- to those identified as at risk of infection, even if patients were uninsured. A study of 657 people using PrEP published last month  found that zero people observed over two and a half years of taking the drug had contracted HIV.

The city has some advantages over other places struggling to reduce  new HIV infections, of course. McNeil notes that San Francisco’s high rent prices have driven out many lower-income residents, such as young black and Latino men, who are most at risk of being infected on a national basis.

Still, there are lessons to be applied elsewhere, particularly in how the city seeks to erase the sort of HIV-related stigma that can cause individuals to avoid getting tested or seeking treatment.

“I love the San Francisco model,” Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the Times. “If it keeps doing what it is doing, I have a strong feeling that they will be successful at ending the epidemic as we know it.”

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