Community in a Time of Crisis: Yale, New Haven, and HIV/AIDS, 1981-1996

Legacies

By the end of the 1990s, the clinical experience of HIV/AIDS was transformed. The development of powerful antiretroviral treatment regimens transformed the once-fatal disease into a chronic illness, and pressure from activists made those regimens more widely accessible and propelled further scientific research. Skillful public health messaging increased awareness of HIV/AIDS and understanding of its modes of transmission, which helped lessen the stigma and discrimination associated with diagnosis.

These changes had profound impacts for people living with HIV/AIDS in New Haven. After groundbreaking research conducted by Warren Andiman, MD throughout the early 1990s demonstrated the efficacy of the antiretroviral drug AZT in preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV, not a single such case has been documented in New Haven since 1996. Though the Pediatric AIDS Clinic still devotes itself to the care of children and teenagers with HIV/AIDS, there are fewer patients each year.

Alvin Novick memorial bench, Edgerton Park, New Haven, 2020.

Alvin Novick memorial bench (closeup on plaque), Edgerton Park, New Haven, 2020.

The Needle Exchange Program lives on through Yale’s Community Health Van. Today, its syringe services program offers clean needles as well as fentanyl test strips and naloxone, continuing the program’s legacy of harm reduction. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the van also began to provide postpartum care and distribute personal protective equipment.

Nonetheless, the urgency of HIV/AIDS remains. In 2018, there were 10,574 people living with HIV in the state of Connecticut. Of those, 258 were recently diagnosed. HIV/AIDS requires continued commitment, not merely to treatment and research, but also to the principles of harm reduction, and racial and economic justice
 

Community Health Care Van, 2020.

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