The District is now offering free, on-demand HIV and AIDS treatments for any city residents who ask for it, officials said Wednesday.
About 3 percent of the city’s population — nearly 18,000 people — has HIV or AIDS. That’s the highest infection rate in the nation and 2 percentage points above the level for an epidemic.
To help combat the spread of the disease, D.C. Department of Health Director Mohammad Akhter said city residents diagnosed with HIV/AIDS can now receive free treatment upon request from providers with National Institute of Health and Howard University. He said anti-viral treatments have become so powerful that they make the disease undetectable, at which point it cannot spread.
“We will make sure that nobody in the city will be without care or treatment,” Akhter said.
It wasn’t immediately clear Wednesday who would be paying for the cost of the treatments.
