After topping the nation just a few months ago for the most people on an AIDS Drug Assistance Drug Program at 1,520, the state Department of Public Health announced today the list is no longer.
“The reduction of our wait list to zero is a remarkable accomplishment, especially considering where we were in 2011,” said DPH Commissioner Brenda Fitzgerald in a prepared statement.
In December, there were 1,520 people who were on the wait list for life-saving drugs used to treat HIV and AIDS — making Georgia the state with the highest number of people on an ADAP wait list.
“Eliminating the waiting list required extraordinary work and ingenuity,” said J. Patrick O’Neal, DPH’s director of health protection.
Melanie Thompson is joining the Georgia Department of Public Health as a special adviser for HIV, STD's, viral hepatitis and tuberculosis, according to a statement released by the department's commissioner, Brenda Fitzgerald.
Thompson is the principal investigator with the AIDS Research Consortium of Atlanta and currently serves on the International AIDS Society-USA Antiretroviral Guidelines Panel and the International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care Guidelines Panel on Entry Into and Retention in Care and Antiretroviral Adherence.
“My feeling is that we can best address the challenges we face with good external input and an overarching plan to guide us,” Fitzgerald said today.