981 - Maine's Largest Ever HIV Outbreak
Public Health On Call
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
4.6 • 644 Ratings
🗓️ 1 December 2025
⏱️ 16 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
About this episode:
For over two years, the city of Bangor, ME, has been in the throes of a serious HIV outbreak, exacerbated by a combination of local political battles and negative perceptions of drug users and unhoused people. In this episode: Aneri Pattani, who has been reporting on this outbreak, discusses the challenges of tracking transmission and treating those infected, and how harm reduction measures might finally turn the tide.
Guests:
Aneri Pattani, MPH, is a senior correspondent at KFF Health News, where she focuses on mental health and substance use disorders.
Host:
Stephanie Desmon, MA, is a former journalist, author, and the director of public relations and communications for the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs.
Show links and related content:
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An HIV Outbreak in Maine Shows the Risk of Trump's Crackdown on Homelessness and Drug Use—KFF Health News
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Penobscot County HIV Outbreak—Maine Center for Disease Control & Prevention
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Rapid Assessment Amid an Injection Drug Use-Driven HIV Outbreak in Massachusetts' Merrimack Valley: Highlights from a Case Study—AIDS and Behavior
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, |
| 0:05.9 | where we bring evidence, experience, and perspective to make sense of today's leading health challenges. |
| 0:16.3 | If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health question at jhh.edu. |
| 0:23.8 | That's public health question at jhhu.edu for future podcast episodes. |
| 0:30.9 | Hey listeners, it's Lindsay Smith Rogers. |
| 0:33.8 | In Bangor, Maine, public health officials are facing a devastating HIV outbreak. |
| 0:39.0 | Aneripatani, a reporter with KFF Health News, talks to Stephanie Desmond about the circumstances that led to the outbreak, and why those same funding cuts and policy changes could have impacts far beyond the state. |
| 0:51.6 | Just a note that this conversation was recorded earlier in November prior to the reopening of the federal government and does reference the state. Just a note that this conversation was recorded earlier in November prior to the |
| 0:55.6 | reopening of the federal government and does reference the shutdown. Let's listen. |
| 1:00.2 | Anari Patani, thanks so much for joining me. Thanks for having me. So today I wanted to talk |
| 1:05.8 | about an HIV outbreak that is happening in Bangoramin. I want to talk about it specifically, but I also |
| 1:12.0 | sort of want to get to a bigger picture of what it's telling us. So I'm wondering if you could |
| 1:16.3 | just sort of paint the landscape of what's going on there. So Bangor, Maine, which is one of the |
| 1:21.9 | bigger cities in the state alongside Portland, Bangor is a lot further north, is dealing with that city and the county it's in, |
| 1:28.9 | is dealing with an HIV outbreak that has been going on since October of 2023, so about two years at |
| 1:35.3 | this point. They've had, over that time frame, 29 positive HIV cases. That is compared to, |
| 1:43.1 | in a normal gear, they would have about two. We're talking about a |
| 1:46.6 | significant outbreak. All the cases or the majority of the cases have been among people who are |
| 1:50.8 | using drugs and many of whom are homeless or living on the street. So it's been a real public |
| 1:55.7 | health crisis for this area. And at the same time, they are struggling with a lot of issues |
| 2:00.4 | that a lot of rural |
| 2:01.5 | places in our country are dealing with you know lack of access to medical services poverty |
... |
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