The Indiana State Department of Health says they've diagnosed four new cases of HIV linked to the Scott County outbreak, bringing the total number of people affected to 188.

The two-year, $200,000 grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse will be supplemented by funding from the IU School of Medicine.

Since the outbreak started last year, the state health department says 184 people have been diagnosed with HIV.

The Centers for Disease Control will send 10 disease intervention specialists to Indiana to help with the testing.

The Indiana State Department of Health says that 166 people have now tested positive for HIV in southern Indiana. Most of the cases have been linked to injection drug abuse.

Scott County is the epicenter of an ongoing HIV outbreak in southern Indiana. As of Monday, 158 people had tested positive for the virus, mostly due to injection drug abuse.

Under new legislation passed just a couple weeks ago, any county in the state can go through a formal process to legalize exchanges. And Scott County has already gotten the ball rolling.

Legislation that would allow needle exchanges in some Indiana counties cleared the House Public Health Committee on Monday.

The governor has said he opposes clean needle exchanges as a drug addiction-fighting strategy, but is making an exception in the case of Scott County, where the number of cases has now grown to 79 since the outbreak was first identified.

Rep. Ed Clere, R-New Albany, plans to introduce an amendment on Wednesday that would permit the distribution of clean needles to IV drug users.