Last year, King County experienced its largest one-year increase in new HIV diagnoses since 2002. The latest annual HIV/AIDS Epidemiology Report and Community Profile shows this was driven by a significant increase in new diagnoses among people who inject drugs.
Matthew Golden is a disease control officer in the HIV/STD program at Public Health - Seattle & King County. He said the county must reassess how it's approaching the epidemic now, and the people affected by it.
"What we need to be thinking about now is, how can we best help the populations that have been left behind in this situation?" Golden said. "And in particular, how do we confront this new epidemic among people who inject drugs."
Golden said one barrier to accessing HIV resources and care is that key health care facilities are in the center of Seattle. He said that makes it hard for many people affected by HIV, because rising housing costs have pushed them out of the city center.
Golden said spreading out health care resources is a focus for the county. In 2014, King County set a goal to reduce the number of new HIV diagnoses by 25 percent by 2020.
