hiv

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A relatively simple effort to provide counseling and connect injection-drug users with resources could prove powerful against the spread of HIV in a notoriously hard-to-reach population, new research suggests.

The study increased by almost 30 percent the use of antiretroviral medications to suppress HIV infection, according to the study, which appears in The Lancet.

When asked about why she decided to work in public health, Maria Gallo, PhD, College of Public Health associate professor of epidemiology, thought back to when she was a Peace Corps volunteer in a small village in Nicaragua about 20 years ago. Gallo witnessed that people fell ill with a “mysterious hemorrhagic fever.” Until a team from the Centers for Disease Control arrived and identified the outbreak of leptospirosis, the cause was unknown.

Gallo says that “seeing a field investigation unfold in real life was powerful.”