With 150 cases is Indiana HIV outbreak reaching its peak?

The number of people infected with the HIV outbreak in Southern Indiana continues to climb, reaching 150 as of today, but state health officials say the tide in the epidemic may finally be turning.

State health officials, working with federal employees and employees from other state health departments, have contacted 385 of 411 people who are at risk of having contracted the virus from others who have already tested positive for it.

Reaching out to these people will hopefully eventually curtail the spread of the disease by ensuring that anyone infected knows his or her status and does not pass on the virus to others. Although finding an additional person could also mean finding additional people to contact, health officials say they have seen the number of those at risk leveling off in recent days.

"We have seen a drop-off in new contacts," said Jennifer Walthall, deputy state health commissioner. "We feel that we are starting to get a handle on where we are in the outbreak."

Next week, Walthall said, disease intervention specialists will do a "blitz" and try to reach all of the remaining contacts.

The One Stop Shop in Austin, Ind., the epicenter of the outbreak, has tested 206 individuals for HIV since it opened at the end of March.

Since that time, 250 people have participated in a clean needle exchange program made possible by Gov. Mike Pence's emergency public health order. The program has handed out more than 10,480 needles.

Originally established for 30 days, the program has been extended through May 24 and could become semi-permanent. Pence this week signed a measure to allow counties that believe that an hepatitis C or HIV outbreak is occurring to ask the Indiana State Department of Health for permission to run such a needle-exchange program.

Scott County already has scheduled an initial meeting for county officials, the first step in the process, said Brittany Combs, a public health nurse for the Scott County Public Health Department. The next step will be to hold a public hearing and then the county, located about a half-hour north of Louisville, plans to request permission to extend the needle exchange program for at least a year.

"Then we can renew that process and extend it longer if need be," Combs said.

When the State Health Department receives a request from a county to start a needle exchange program, it has 10 days to respond. The department is not aware of any other counties who want to start a needle-exchange program, Walthall said.

Even once the outbreak tapers off, state health officials recognize extensive services still will be needed in Scott County, the least healthy county in the state, according to the 2015 rankings from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Those who have been diagnosed with HIV will need treatment for the rest of their lives. The outbreak has motivated many people in the area to seek substance abuse counseling, whether or not they are HIV positive.

But that may not be easy.

Although the number of beds for residential treatment in the area has increased to 18 since the start of the outbreak and the wait time for treatment has been reduced from three months to about two weeks, Walthall said they would still like to expand the services available.

Another problem is that recidivism rates for substance abusers are traditionally high, meaning some of those people could remain in treatment of one type or another for the rest of their lives.

Still, Scott County has come a long way in the past few months, since local health officials first told the state about their fears that the area was seeing an outbreak linked to drug use.

On Tuesday, Walthall reflected on how silent the room fell as everyone there realized the gravity of the situation.

"We did not know the scope of the needle-sharing population in this area," she said, adding that as they have realized just how widespread the drug use is, "I'm actually pleased that it (the HIV outbreak) is what it is and not more."

Call Star reporter Shari Rudavsky at (317) 444-6354. Follow her on Twitter: @srudavsky.