2008 Policy Priorities: Prevention

The following initiatives are designed to slow the spread of HIV through targeted, systemic changes and expanded access to evidence-based strategies.

1. Expand condom access and widely promote condom use, including in prisons: Broad-based, publicly-funded, and well- promoted programs to expand access to male and female condoms and lubricants are desperately needed to help Illinoisans prevent HIV transmission.

For sexually active individuals, consistent and correct use of latex or polyurethane condoms is the most effective means to prevent HIV transmission and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Despite this knowledge, many at-risk communities lack easy, affordable access to condoms. New York City has demonstrated an effective response by launching the nation’s first condom initiative, which will have distributed 18 million free condoms in the program’s first year. Chicago should follow suit and develop an equally comprehensive program. Illinois should also permit condom distribution in state prisons. Other programs across the country and around the globe have proven that condom access poses no threat to prison security while providing much needed prevention tools for an extremely vulnerable population. HIV rates are at least three times higher in jails and prisons than in the general population. Despite the reality of consensual sex in prisons, inmates are currently afforded no means of protecting themselves or their partners from HIV or STDs.

2. Fund and support comprehensive sexuality education: Congress and Illinois should eliminate funding for ineffective and potentially harmful abstinence-only-until-marriage programs and instead support age-appropriate, science-based, and comprehensive sex education.

Despite broad-based public support for open and honest sex education, many Illinois school districts provide young people with misleading and inaccurate curricula. Biased information with factual errors may put GLBT youth at an increased risk for HIV infection. In 2007, a congressionally mandated study found that abstinence-only programs had absolutely no impact in delaying the age at which young people become sexually active. Alarmingly, other studies have documented increased rates of oral intercourse, unprotected anal intercourse, and lower rates of condom use among abstinence-only program participants. Comprehensive sex education ensures that young people have accurate information about methods to protect themselves and their partners when they do become sexually active. It’s time for Illinois and the nation to reject ideologically driven agendas and put our young people’s health first.

3. Help individuals who inject drugs prevent death from overdose: Illinois lawmakers should enact legislation to expand drug overdose prevention services statewide.

HIV infection and drug overdose are among the myriad health concerns affecting people who inject drugs. Services for users should include strategies to help them stay alive, safe, and free from HIV and hepatitis infection while supporting those who are ready to accept substance abuse treatment services. Fortunately, a safe and inexpensive medication, naloxone, can reverse opiate overdoses and keep drug users alive. A Chicago program has trained drug users to reverse overdoses and saved more than 750 lives since 2001.

4. Enact the Microbicide Development Act: The federal government should speed efforts to develop new prevention tools.

Still in development, microbicides are new tools to slow sexual transmission of HIV and other STDs when applied topically. While the federal government centrally coordinates research on such strategies as vaccines, microbicide research is scattered between several federal offices and agencies. The Microbicide Development Act (MDA) would establish a branch within the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) devoted to coordinating microbicide research within NIAID, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and authorize funding increases needed to carry out this work. In 2007, NIAID announced that it would create a dedicated microbicide branch within the agency, embracing several of the provisions included in the MDA. However, the MDA must still be enacted to ensure that the necessary resources are appropriated to carry out an aggressive research agenda on candidate vaginal and rectal microbicide products.

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Introduction

Summary

Prevention

Care

Illinois HIV/AIDS Statistics

Printable Illinois HIV/AIDS Statistics (PDF)