In honor of National HIV Testing Day, the Cumberland County Department of Public Health and a Fayetteville Walgreens are offering free HIV testing.
In partnership with Piedmont Health Agency and Sickle Cell Agency, the Walgreens on 110 Grove St. is offering free HIV tests on June 27, in addition to tests for hepatitis C and syphilis, two other communicable diseases. Test results will be available in 20 minutes or less, according to a press release from Greater Than HIV/STDs, a public information campaign organizing the free testing.
The Cumberland County Department of Public Health’s STI Clinic at 1235 Ramsey St. will also offer free HIV tests on June 27 from 8 a.m. to noon.
The local Walgreens and health department are among over 415 health agencies and pharmacies across the country offering free testing on National HIV Testing Day. This year marks the largest-ever participation of groups in the Greater Than HIV/STDs campaign.
First recognized in 1995, National HIV Testing Day encourages people to find out their HIV status, which can only be determined through an HIV test.
Cumberland County has some of the highest case numbers of newly diagnosed HIV infections and Stage 3 HIV, also known as AIDS, in North Carolina. In 2024, Cumberland County had the fifth-highest rate of new infections of HIV and the sixth-highest rate of new AIDS cases in the state, according to Alba Natale, a communicable disease nurse with the public health department.
The rankings are an improvement from 2023, when the county had the fourth-highest rates of new diagnosed infections of HIV and cases of AIDS, Natale said in a presentation to the Board of Health this month.
From January to March, the county saw 13 new diagnosed infections of HIV and five new AIDS cases, according to data from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. This year’s case numbers represent a drop of over 27% in new diagnosed HIV infections and a decrease of over 37% in new AIDS cases from the same period in 2024.
“That means we’re doing something,” Natale told the Board of Health at its June meeting. “I attributed that to a lot of the efforts that partner agencies like C-FORT [Cumberland-Fayetteville Opioid Response Team] and the HIV Task Force [have done]. What we’re doing together is to make sure that people are getting screened, and then, if they are diagnosed, they’re getting treatment earlier.”
This year’s National HIV Testing Day comes as the Federal Drug Administration approved a twice-a-year HIV prevention shot last week. However, the cost of the shots, which is over $14,000 per injection, could be a barrier to some, given that cheaper prevention methods like the HIV prevention medicine PrEP exist.
Access to those cheaper prevention methods could become more difficult if the Trump administration goes through with its plans to cut the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division on HIV Prevention. Part of the division’s work includes promoting prevention methods like PrEP, which is 99% effective at preventing HIV transmission through sex when taken as prescribed, according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.
Other HIV programs are also at risk. A proposed budget from the Trump administration suggests cutting $74 million from the Ryan White program. The program helps low-income Americans living with HIV get access to treatment, transportation, housing and other services.
North Carolina received about $16.4 million in April from the Ryan White program — about half the amount it received in previous years, according to an NCDHHS press release in support of domestic HIV programs.
Further cuts to funding could hurt organizations like the Fayetteville-based Southern Regional Area Health Education Center, which relies on federal dollars to provide health care to those living with HIV. The Trump administration’s proposed funding cuts could force the center to eliminate services for more than 100 patients, its HIV program coordinator, Yvonne Early, told The Border Belt Independent in May.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has also ended its funding of HIV vaccine research. The cuts terminated two vaccine studies at the Duke Human Vaccine Institute and the Scripps Research Institute, with National Institutes of Health officials telling researchers that the department had elected “to go with currently available approaches to eliminate HIV,” according to CBS News.
CityView Reporter Morgan Casey is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. Morgan’s reporting focuses on health care issues in and around Cumberland County and can be supported through the News Foundation of Greater Fayetteville.