In February 2019, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) along with several other agencies came together to present Ending the HIV Epidemic: A Plan for America. The plan, which aims to reduce new HIV transmissions by 75 percent by 2025 and by 90 percent by 2030, focused its Phase I efforts on seven states with a substantial number of HIV diagnoses in rural areas, along with 48 counties, Washington, D.C., and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

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 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.

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South Carolina Self-Testing Program

The first step to protecting yourself and your contacts against HIV is to get tested. Now, that step is easier than ever with free at-home testing available to South Carolina residents. With OraQuick In-Home HIV Test Kit, you can test yourself for HIV and find out your status in as little as 20 minutes, without ever leaving your home.

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.

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.

The goal of the TRICE Program is to ensure a seamless and rapid transition to HIV medical services for persons that are HIV positive. People living with HIV/AIDS who have not received services from an HIV medical provider in 9 months or more are deemed not in care by TRICE definition. The TRICE program's mission is to get persons back into care by:

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).