HIV cases double in Wisconsin, as expert says people need to get tested

450 cases in last two years

The number of HIV cases have doubled in the last 11 years among young people in Wisconsin. 

That, according to the Wisconsin Dept. of Health Services. It’s not a surprising number to Gundersen Health System infection prevention  specialist Marylin Michels in La Crosse.

“When you watch the news you see they’re picking up syringes out of the street,” Michels said, “there is a connection between HIV transmission and IV drug abuse. It does not supririse me we’re seeing an increase in that. We’re also seeing an increase in Hepatitis C.”

Another problem in the HIV becoming more prevalent is the amount of people that are never tested, according Michels.

“They say 1 of 8 people who are HIV positive don’t know they’re HIV positive,” Michels said. “So you can’t take steps spreading it, if you don’t know you’re HIV positive.”

Around 35 million lives have been lost to AIDS since it was first detected 35 years ago. 

There’s been positive improvement in the fight against the disease, but there were still more than 450 new HIV cases in the last two years in Wisconsin. And, it gets worse if you wait.

“We’re less successful if they wait until they have a opportunistic infection,” Michels said. “A large number of our patients we identify as being HIV positive, within a short period of time, they have the AIDS diagnosis.”