World AIDS Day in Alaska: Support for those living with AIDS in the last frontier

FAIRBANKS, Alaska (KTUU) – World AIDS Day, recognized on Dec. 1, is a time to celebrate the advancements in treatment for those living with HIV and AIDS and those that died from the disease.

The Alaskan AIDS Assistance Association, also known as Four A’s, celebrated World AIDS Day on Sunday at their office in Anchorage.

They serve nearly half of the states population living with AIDS or HIV. That population averages about 750 people and over half of them need assistance according to Robin Lutz, the Exec. Director of Four A’s.

Around 40 of those folks needing assistance get support from the Interior AIDS Association (IAA).

Both organizations provide support through clean needle programs, health care assistance, housing assistance, free food and more. The sheer number of folks who need that support is a failure of the state, according to Lutz.

The large need for that assistance is generally related to economic issues, according to Lutz. Folks that find themselves in this situation often face barriers to services and treatment access, perpetuating the cycle of death caused by AIDS. “We still lose people because they weren’t able to access meds or they didn’t know their own status, right, because they didn’t have access to testing information,” Lutz said.

There are newer treatments that can prevent death in addition to the spread of the disease.

“It used to be a handful of pills, now it’s one pill a day that you just take and it kind of helps suppress the virus from spreading in your body,” said Ryan Pennington, client services director at IAA.

As for prevention, there’s now medications called PrEP or pre-exposure prophylaxis which can help prevent an uninfected person from becoming infected. PEP, post exposure prophylaxis, can help a person who was exposed fight the virus before it becomes permanent.

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