Health advocates and stakeholders mark World AIDS Day with a candlelight vigil

By Norah Hogan

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    PORTLAND, Maine (WMTW) — Community members gathered for a candlelight vigil in Portland to mark World AIDS Day on Thursday. The event, organized by Frannie Peabody Center, included a moment of silence and a musical performance of “Seasons of Love” from Rent to honor and remember those who’ve died from AIDS.

Thirty-eight million people worldwide have HIV and approximately 1,600 of those people live in Maine according to Maine Center of Disease Control data.

“The treatments are there,” said Frannie Peabody Center executive director Katie Rutherford. “The real challenge is getting people connected to care, making sure they know their status, because we do still see people advancing to AIDS diagnoses, and unfortunately, we’re still losing individuals to AIDS-related illness.”

In Maine, 33% of people diagnosed with AIDS between 2017 and 2021 were diagnosed after their first HIV test. Experts say that indicates delayed detection.

“Testing is the only way that we’ll be able to find people living with HIV and get them connected to care so that there is any further transmission,” Rutherford said.

Testing and early detection help prevent transmission and severe health outcomes.

“Now you can live with HIV healthy; achieve an undetectable viral load, which means you can’t pass HIV on to someone else,” Rutherford said.

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