State Loses Funds to Track HIV

Pennsylvania is one of eight states no longer participating in a national program that helps track the spread of HIV. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said those states did not meet requirements to remain in the program. Pennsylvania had participated since 2005. Pennsylvania Department of Health spokeswoman Holly Senior says the state will continue to track the number of people who have HIV, but will no longer have the kind of detailed data that the CDC program provided. The CDC program can distinguish new infections from old ones, helping researchers better track the virus. The monitoring system recently indicated that the annual infection rate in the United States was 40 percent higher than previously thought.