Wednesday, February 5, 2025
2/5/2025
The United States Virgin Islands (USVI) is an archipelago consisting of four islands with a population of 87,146. The USVI faces unique challenges in addressing the HIV epidemic due to its geographical location, cultural diversity, and limited resources. Efforts have been made to combat HIV, including the implementation of increased testing and awareness campaigns. Currently, there are approximately 825 individuals living with HIV in the USVI, with only 0.946% aware of their status. Between 2018 and 2022, there were 62 new HIV diagnoses, and alarming 25% of individuals were already at an advanced stage of the disease at the time of diagnosis. Males and individuals over 55 years old bear a higher burden of HIV infection, and 59.6% of new diagnoses occur among Black or African American individuals. Access to HIV medical care is crucial, with only 25.3% of individuals receiving care and 40.2% achieving viral suppression by 2022. Strengthening healthcare systems and expanding access to care are vital for improving outcomes. To address the HIV epidemic, the United States Virgin Islands (USVI) is implementing a comprehensive multi-sectoral approach aligned with the goals of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS). The project focuses on several key strategies to combat HIV, including enhancing surveillance systems to gather accurate data, increasing HIV testing and awareness, improving access to medical care and treatment, targeting prevention interventions for key populations, fostering community engagement, and coordinating efforts among stakeholders. The aim is to overcome challenges such as limited resources, stigma, and socioeconomic factors, and to make significant progress in HIV prevention, testing, treatment, and care in the USVI. The implementation of these strategies is expected to yield short-term and intermediate outcomes. In the short term, the project aims to achieve increased routine HIV screening, improved availability of testing services, identification of new HIV cases and individuals not in care, and integrated screening approaches. These efforts are intended to increase knowledge of HIV status, reduce late diagnoses, and improve linkage to care. Also, focusing on rapid and effective treatment for diagnosed individuals. The short-term outcomes of this strategy include rapid linkage to care, provision of HIV partner services, engagement in prevention and treatment services, early initiation of antiretroviral therapy (ART), and the provision of supportive services. The intermediate outcomes involve increased receipt of medical care and achieving viral suppression, which is essential for long-term health and prevention of transmission. We are aiming to prevent new HIV transmissions. The short-term outcomes include increased linkage to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) services, improved availability of harm reduction approaches, awareness-raising initiatives, enhanced perinatal HIV surveillance, and improved perinatal services. The intermediate outcomes involve increased utilization of PrEP and PEP, higher adoption of harm reduction strategies, and reduced perinatal HIV infections. Creating strategies to respond to HIV clusters and outbreaks. The short-term outcomes include improved cluster data and response activities. The intermediate outcomes involve reduced transmission, improved care and prevention, addressing disparities, enhanced coordination among stakeholders, contact tracing, implementation of evidence-based interventions, and strengthening of local capacity to respond effectively to HIV clusters and outbreaks. Conducts HIV surveillance to gather accurate and actionable data. The short-term outcomes include improved completeness, timeliness, accuracy, monitoring of HIV trends and disparities, and enhanced data security. The intermediate outcomes involve using surveillance data to identify affected populations and disparities, improving data exchange between relevant entitle
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).