Digital Scholarship and Initiatives

This article describes an infectious disease clinic established in Robeson County in January, 2001 by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's School of Medicine. When the UNC-Chapel Hill AIDS Clinical Trials Unit saw that 10% of its patients were driving five hours from Robeson County, the medical director applied for and received a $100,000 grant to help fund the first year of a community-based infectious diseases clinic for Robeson County.

Robeson County ranked 28th in the nation in new cases of syphilis--a serious concern, since syphilis infection can increase HIV transmission two- to fivefold. Half the syphilis cases were among African Americans and 41% among Native Americans.

Costs of the clinic's services to indigent patients are covered by Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance, and the federal AIDS Drug Assistance Program. The clinic can provide much better care for AIDS patients than can local emergency rooms, which are often used by AIDS patients with advanced symptoms. Advanced care for AIDS is often not reimbursed to hospitals. Robeson County's new clinic is staffed weekly by two UNC-Chapel Hill School of Medicine faculty and by a UNC-Chapel Hill family nurse practitioner. The clinic treats HIV only; it does not provide primary care.

Note: The article refers to a document related to syphilis in Robeson County entitled “Eliminating Syphilis: Robeson County, North Carolina,” available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at:  
www.cdc.gov/stopsyphilis/factPDF/robeson.pdf

Note: Robeson County's syphilis rate was 18th highest in the nation in 2000. See Table 24, “Primary and Secondary Syphilis,” at 
www.cdc.gov/std/stats/Tables/2000Table24.htm (link not accessible 03/04/12).