Communicable Diseases
Montana AIDS cases as of April 30, 2000
Total 424, Deaths 235
Missoula County-AIDS cases since 1985- 60 cases
Excerpts from the Mt. DPHHS "Epidemiologic Profile of AIDS in Montana Prepared for HIV Community Planning" March 1999 Mt HIV Epi
Status of HIV Infection and AIDS in Missoula at the end of 1999
The treatment of HIV has been revolutionized in the past three years by the advent of potent combination drug therapies. This has led to control of the infection in many (but not to a cure), and to a dramatic decrease in the number of AIDS-related deaths; it has also resulted in a variety of problems, both anticipated and unanticipated. Funding these expensive treatments for a prolonged and indefinite period of time has been and remains a challenge for government and other funding agencies. For the person infected by HIV, the
necessity for 99-100% compliance with a complicated drug regimen, especially in the face of common side-effects of nausea, fatigue and malaise, can be daunting or nearly impossible. Because not everyone responds to the new drugs, deaths still occur; and, now that such deaths are less common, the individual dying is apt to be more isolated and to receive less support than would have been true during the height of the epidemic several years ago. Because the duration of the effectiveness of the new drugs is variable and
unpredictable, future planning (re-entering the job market, for example) is problematic. And because HIV infection is incorrectly perceived by the general public as now under control and no longer a major threat, many individuals have relaxed their guard in the area of sexual safety.
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