HIV/AIDS

On this West Virginia Morning, people who have been incarcerated, once they get out, often struggle to find a job and a place to live. Those struggles often drive them back to crime, but re-entry councils are helping to address that problem. Also, in this show, Kanawha County has the most alarming HIV outbreak in the nation, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but a small team from the CDC is on the way to help.

West Virginia’s HIV outbreak is getting noticed by lawmakers in Washington. Earlier this week, U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito announced that $2,397,881 will go to the state Department of Health and Human Services for HIV/AIDS prevention and medical treatment.

Decades after HIV was first discovered, there’s still discrimination. In this week’s episode of Inside Appalachia, we look back at some of the stories our newsroom reported over the past three years about harm reduction programs. We'll hear from several people here in Appalachia who are living with HIV. We also look back at why a needle exchange program in Charleston, West Virginia, was shut down in 2018 amid public outcry. Three years later, the city is now at the center of the most alarming outbreak of HIV in the nation.

A volunteer-run harm-reduction group in the city of Charleston called SOAR has come under fire from city officials for distributing syringes as part of its “mobile outreach” efforts.

Health officials in the Ohio Valley are investigating outbreaks of disease associated with needle drug use in what is emerging as a new public health…

On West Virginia Morning, a special report from Appalachia Health News contributor Jessie Wright-Mendoza about HIV and AIDS care in southern West…

There are several organizations in West Virginia that advocate on behalf of the lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender community. Now, a new center in…