Minn. health official addresses 8% rise in HIV cases

Kris Ehresmann
A 2012 file photo of Kris Ehresmann, epidemiologist with the Minnesota Department of Health.
MPR Photo/Lorna Benson

State health officials say there were 315 new cases of HIV in Minnesota last year, an 8 percent increase over the number of new cases in 2011.

More than a third of the new HIV cases involved people in their 20s.

While health officials have seen an uptick in heroin use, Health Department epidemiologist Kris Ehresmann told MPR News it's not clear if that trend is having an impact on HIV cases among users of injected drugs.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that health providers screen everyone ages 13 to 64 for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, as a means to help stop transmission.

Ehresmann also told MPR that treatment is an important prevention strategy.

"There's a new emphasis on treatment as prevention, because we know that if we can get individuals who are HIV-positive into treatment, people in treatment have a 96 percent reduction in their transmission rate," Ehresmann said.

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