HIV outbreak

Dr. Jerome Adams says he is concerned about the potential for another HIV outbreak in southeast Indiana now that Scott County has closed its needle exchange.

Scott County's needle exchange program has been credited with slowing the severe HIV outbreak that rocked the rural county in 2015, and is now seen as the national benchmark for how similar programs should operate. It will stop operating Jan. 1, 2022.

Syringe service programs, also called needle exchanges, provide intravenous drug users with clean needles and a place to dispose of used ones.

In 2015, Scott County experienced an HIV outbreak fueled by the injection of opioids. Since then the county has been able to reduce the number of new cases.

A new study looked at whether or not early intervention would have changed the dynamics of the outbreak. Researchers hope it illustrates a valuable lesson for communities in the future.

Scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention used a novel disease-mapping method to study how the 2015 HIV outbreak was transmitted.

Scott County opened the state's first syringe exchange program in 2015 after then-Governor Mike Pence declared a public health emergency.

People packed into a small meeting room Wednesday as the Scott County Commissioners considered whether to approve the health board's request to continue the program.

Since the beginning of last year, only 69 Scott County residents have gone into the inpatient rehab program run by the community mental health center, and that includes the people who didn't finish.

Prescription painkiller abuse sparked an HIV outbreak in rural Indiana. Kelly McEvers takes NPR's new podcast, Embedded, inside the home where IV drug users meet.