After Prison, Many People Living With HIV Go Without Treatment
When HIV-positive people leave prison, they often lose access to medical care and the drugs that suppress the virus. It's a missed opportunity in the fight against HIV, public health advocates say.
When people living with HIV walk out of prison, they leave with up to a month's worth of HIV medication in their pockets. What they don't necessarily leave with is access to health care or the services that will keep them healthy in the long term.
That is one of the findings of a study published Tuesday in PLoS Medicine. The study was among the first to follow people with HIV from jail or prison back into the community. What they found was that most people — more than half — fell out of care within three years of leaving prison.
But those who did stay in care did well — better than those who returned to prison. They were more likely to have access to health
