Twin epidemics: HIV and Hepatitis C in the urban Northeast

A new Yale study looks at the scope and consequences of a burgeoning health problem in the cities of the U.S. Northeast: concurrent infection with both HIV and Hepatitis C (HCV). The study appears online in the May 14 issue of the Public Library of Science (PLoS One). HIV and HCV are the two most prevalent chronic viral infections in the United States. But standard population surveys are underestimates, due to the exclusion of high-risk homeless and criminal justice populations. The Yale team studied more than 8300 individuals who underwent health screenings and assessments for HIV and HCV at the community health care van (CHCV), a mobile medical clinic in New Haven, Connecticut. Their goal was to unravel the true risk factors for each disease individually, and for co-infection - infection with both viral diseases simultaneously - by correlating risk factors and innovative Arc GIS mapping techniques. Eight percent of those studied were infected with HIV.