Post by Logan on Jun 29, 2016 0:59:49 GMT -6
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — The federal agency that provides health care to Native Americans will award up to $1 million in grants to tribes and organizations across the country in an effort to improve HIV prevention and care outcomes among tribal populations.
The funding from the Indian Health Service will come in the form of up to five awards together totaling no more than $200,000 a year for five years. The goals of the effort, announced Monday, are to reduce the number of new HIV infections annually, cut the risk of transmission by changing behavior and encourage an open discussion about the virus and disease among the Native American community, which compared with other and ethnicities, has poorer survival rates after an HIV diagnosis.
Rear Adm. Dr. Sarah Linde, the acting chief medical officer of the Indian Health Service, said in a statement to The Associated Press Tuesday that more HIV education is needed "because IHS data shows that as many as 26 percent of the American Indian and Alaska Native people living with HIV infection do not know it."
The IHS National HIV/AIDS Program aims to educate patients on how HIV is spread and how to get tested, offer HIV testing as a routine part of health care, and improve access to care, treatment and prevention services, Linde said.
Read more: hosted2.ap.org/SDABE/1b80e2fc573048b2bd9ba4f4810bfc4d/Article_2016-06-28-US--Native%20Americans-HIV%20Prevention/id-c90f48b9418042f48e2c4529e431eb95
The funding from the Indian Health Service will come in the form of up to five awards together totaling no more than $200,000 a year for five years. The goals of the effort, announced Monday, are to reduce the number of new HIV infections annually, cut the risk of transmission by changing behavior and encourage an open discussion about the virus and disease among the Native American community, which compared with other and ethnicities, has poorer survival rates after an HIV diagnosis.
Rear Adm. Dr. Sarah Linde, the acting chief medical officer of the Indian Health Service, said in a statement to The Associated Press Tuesday that more HIV education is needed "because IHS data shows that as many as 26 percent of the American Indian and Alaska Native people living with HIV infection do not know it."
The IHS National HIV/AIDS Program aims to educate patients on how HIV is spread and how to get tested, offer HIV testing as a routine part of health care, and improve access to care, treatment and prevention services, Linde said.
Read more: hosted2.ap.org/SDABE/1b80e2fc573048b2bd9ba4f4810bfc4d/Article_2016-06-28-US--Native%20Americans-HIV%20Prevention/id-c90f48b9418042f48e2c4529e431eb95