Georgia health officials have launched an HIV and AIDS informational website,
Georgia CAPUS (gacapus.com.)
The website offers four different components offering information on individuals living with HIV and AIDS, care providers to individuals with HIV and AIDS, and basic information for those wanting to learn more about the disease, according to the website.
The website’s launch comes after a conference held by the University of Georgia in September. Public health officials and researchers offered information at the conference about the staggering rate of HIV and AIDS infection rates in Georgia, according to
Online Athens.
The Georgia Department of Public Health received $7.5 million from the Centers for Disease Control to launch the website, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health website. The Georgia CAPUS website was launched to target the highest risk minorities.
“We’re expecting to see an increase in the number of people who live with HIV and AIDS,” Tanjina Shabu, a biostatistician at the Georgia Department of Public Health, told Online Athens. “Can we bend the curve? We are optimistic, but it will take more than 10 years.”
More than 50,000 people are living with HIV and AIDS in Georgia but 45 percent of those infected are not receiving treatment, according to the
Georgia Department of Public Health. One of five people In Georgia are also living with HIV and AIDS and do not know they have the disease.
“HIV information currently available online can be confusing or conflicting. The CAPUS Care Portal cuts through the haze, bringing HIV positive individuals and providers closer to the truth - treatment is prevention,” Patrick O’Neal, director of Health protection for the health department, said in a press release. “We know that an HIV positive individual receiving, and adhering to, an appropriate treatment regimen is 96 percent less likely to pass HIV to someone else.”
