Hurricane Helene: Public Health Department Closures

Latest updates: Hurricane Helene

Our public health departments' hours of operation may be affected by power and staffing outages. This means that some closures may not appear on the state government office delays and closings map. The health and safety of our employees and our clients remains our highest priority. We are working to get services restored as safely and quickly as possible.

Learn more about DPH's role with hurricanes, floods, and weather emergencies.

Partner Services

Local health departments offer Partner Services, a free, confidential program for individuals and their partners who may have a sexually transmitted infection (STI), as well as others who are at an increased risk for infection. Partner Services assists with linking individuals and their partners to testing, treatment, medical care, STI/HIV prevention services, and other medical services to improve health outcomes. The goal is to prevent the spread of STIs and reduce the harmful effects of complications. Services are offered for the following infections:

Partner Notification

Partner services are a broad array of services offered to persons with HIV infection, syphilis, gonorrhea, or chlamydial infection and their partners. A critical function of partner services is partner notification, a process through which infected persons are interviewed to elicit information about their partners, who can then be confidentially notified of their possible exposure or potential risk.

Data to Care (DTC) - Success Stories

I am a 53-year-old white gay male and I have been HIV positive for 18 years. I have been in and out of care during that time. I lost 3 classes of medications because I was not in care. I was dealing with the stigma of being HIV positive, which led me to start using drugs, then eventually harder drugs, including meth. I have been clean and back into care now for 3 years. I am now undetectable. I am a Peer Educator and a voting member on the South Carolina HIV Planning Council. I have been testing others and providing prevention services at Careteam+ for about 4 months now.

Data to Care (DTC) - Providers interested in DTC Services

DHEC is responsible for implementing the statewide Data to Care initiative in collaboration with participating providers to successfully link and re-engage people living with HIV (PLWH) back to primary HIV medical care. DHEC executes DTC by securely exchanging protected health information (PHI) through Provide Enterprise (PE) or Secure File Transport Protocol (SFTP) on a quarterly basis.

Data to Care (DTC)

What is Data to Care (DTC)?

DTC is a public health strategy that aims to use HIV surveillance data to identify HIV-diagnosed individuals, not in care, link them to care, and support the HIV Care Continuum.

DTC in South Carolina is known as Targeting Re-engagement In Care Efficiently (TRICE).