Just 100 miles west of Cincinnati, the sleepy hamlet of Austin, Ind. may seem like a modern day Mayberry. An alarming outbreak of new cases of HIV and the Hepatitis C virus (HVC) linked to intravenous drug use there, however, has health officials throughout several states on alert.
Healthcare workers on alert
The rash of new cases, including 165 confirmed cases in the town of only 4,200 people, prompted the Centers for Disease Control to warn health departments, healthcare workers and doctors throughout the area of the possible spread of the diseases.
The alert, posted in April, was immediately echoed by state officials in Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana.
Austin, located in Scott County just north of Louisville, had only five known cases of HIV until late last year. Then, from November through January, 11 new cases were identified. Since then, that number has ballooned to 135 making the incidence of the disease in the small, rural community “higher than any country in sub-Saharan Africa,” according to Dr. Thomas Frieden, the CDC’s director.
What’s behind the outbreak?
In follow-up interviews, the vast majority of the new cases in Austin have been linked to injected drug abuse and shared needles, sometime involving generations of the same family. The number is greater than in all of New York City “” with its population of 8.4 million “” during the past year, Frieden pointed out.
The already well-known heroin epidemic in the Tri-State puts our area at greater risk. In Kentucky, overdose deaths have quadrupled since 1999, a rate that is higher than all but two states. While in Northern Kentucky, St. Elizabeth Healthcare reported it treated 745 overdose cases last year alone “” a huge increase from previous years.
Scary side effect of drug abuse
While the inherent dangers of an HIV spread are widely understood, a Hepatitis C outbreak should be just as alarming, according to Joyce Rice, epidemiology manager for the Northern Kentucky Independent Health Department. New cases of HCV tripled in Kentucky from 2006 to 2012, the latest trending statistics available.
About 80 percent of people infected with Hepatitis C will develop a lifelong infection without treatment, Rice added.
“Since most people with Hepatitis C do not have symptoms or have very mild symptoms, they may not know they’re infected,” she said. They can live with an infection for decades without showing symptoms.
Fatal consequences
Without treatment, though, up to a fifth of those infected will eventually develop cirrhosis of the liver, which could be fatal. Hepatitis C is the leading cause of liver cancer or failure and the need for liver transplants.
Around 17,000 Americans die from the disease each year, Rice said.
The good news, especially on the HCV front, is that once an infection is detected and detected early enough, treatment is highly successful.
“New treatments are available for hepatitis C than can get rid of the virus,” Rice said. “Once treatment is completed, the person is no longer able to spread the virus. But the only way to know if you have Hepatitis C is to get tested. Early detection saves lives.”
