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

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

The outbreak centered in the town of Austin in Scott County. The number of cases more than doubled to 153 from late to mid-May and at the outbreak's height as many as 22 new cases were diagnosed weekly. Now it's down to one or two per week.

Ravaged by one of the worst outbreaks of HIV in recent history and an underlying epidemic of injection drug addiction, a small rural community of Austin is changing fast as it grapples with the fallout of the crisis.

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.

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.

The outbreak has been concentrated in Scott County. Dr. Kevin Burke of the Clark County Health Department, which handles HIV cases for the region, says his team has confirmed 51 cases as of Wednesday afternoon. Fifteen other people have been flagged through preliminary screenings.