Five days after Gov. Mike Pence signed an executive order allowing a needle-exchange program in Scott County and allocating state Department of Health resources to the area, an HIV testing and treatment clinic is opening at the epicenter of the HIV outbreak.
When patients walk in the door of Foundations Family Medicine in Austin, they are administered a kind of questionnaire about their sexual behavior and drug use.
They're then given a kit to swab their gums and sample is tested on the spot.
It takes about 20 minutes to get the results back, and, even though it's only a preliminary test, the results are 99 percent accurate.
While the results are being determined, nurses plan to educate the patients about safe sex protocols, such as using condoms and telling their partner about any sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, they might have.
The patients will also be given the opportunity to participate in a needle-exchange program and be given treatment options, including addiction therapy.
"These patients have a high need because they can't go to other places. We are largely their only resource," says Sherry McNeely, staff nurse at Foundations Family Medicine, who has been busy preparing testing supplies and a kind of medical "goodie bag" full of male and female condoms and pamphlets about HIV and STIs.
More than 80 people in the area have tested positive for HIV so far, many of them low income and between 20 to 30 years old. The infections have been linked to IV drug use of the prescription opioid Opana.
The outbreak, which the CDC has since deemed an epidemic, started in Austin, Ind., but has since spread to surrounding counties. The number of cases have been steadily increasing in recent months.
Doctors expect to see a spike in the number of cases in the coming weeks because of the increase in testing.
"It may look like this epidemic is growing rapidly," says Dr. William Cooke, the medical director of Foundations Family Medicine. "I want to caution that may not be the case. It may just be that we're detecting it better."
The governor's executive order is only effective for 30 days, so unless extended, the state resources, which include everything from personnel to boxes of condoms, will largely disappear after a month.
Dr. Cooke, though, plans to open the HIV clinic every Tuesday, indefinitely.
The nurses have taken classes so they can do the preliminary tests instead of relying solely on the the outside testing company.
Uninsured patients will also be signed up for insurance, likely under Medicaid or HIP 2.0, so Foundations Family Medicine can be reimbursed for treatment they provide later on.
As of Tuesday afternoon, about 30 patients had stopped by for HIV testing. Health officials say they started seeing more people in the afternoon after word about the clinic had spread.
