For two decades, The Pride Center at Equality Park in Wilton Manors has offered free HIV testing to thousands of people. But that could end as soon as July.
The National Institutes of Health, the largest funding source of medical research in the world, terminated millions of dollars in grants that fund the fight against HIV. That cut includes a $350,000 grant The Pride Center relied on to test the public.
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WATCH HERE"This is not the time to take away that funding because we are already fighting this battle and we’re not winning," said Robert Boo, CEO of The Pride Center. "We need to be doing more, more funding to get out to the community."
The Pride Center tests people by meeting them where they are, in churches, pharmacies, schools and stores.
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Last year they tested 1,900 people. Boo said they’ve already identified three new HIV positive cases this year.
Boo fears a resurgence of the virus if funding for testing and care is eliminated.
"I'm old enough that I grew up in the 80s, 90s, and lost my best friends to HIV, so my biggest fear is to see that circle back around and have another pandemic with HIV impacting people," said Boo.
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Dr. Michael Sension, Regional Medical Director for CAN Community Health, said for nearly a decade Miami-Dade and Broward Counties have one of the highest rates of new HIV infections in the country. He said testing is crucial to changing that.
"If we reduce and severely pull back funding for HIV testing and our testing efforts, we then let multiple people walk around in our community with HIV who don't know it and then can transmit HIV," said Sension.
What especially confuses him, is the apparent about-face by the Trump Administration. President Trump made a commitment to eradicating the virus in 2019.
"The very agencies that have been vital to our ending the HIV epidemic effort, which was a program started by Trump in his 1st administration, the very agencies at the forefront of this effort have been gutted in terms of layoffs and reassignments and funding cuts," said Sension.
A statement on ending the grants from the National Institutes of Health reported by The Guardian, said it is “taking action to terminate research funding that is not aligned with NIH and HHS priorities. We remain dedicated to restoring our agency to its tradition of upholding gold-standard, evidence-based science.”
Boo says he is looking at other sources of funding so the center can continue their free testing and outreach program beyond June 30th.
If you are interested in making a donation to The Pride Center at Equality Park, click here.
