About the Ryan White HIV Care Program
The Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program is the largest federal program focused exclusively on providing HIV care and treatment services to people living with HIV. The program provides a comprehensive system of care for people living with HIV who are uninsured or underinsured.
Due to rising numbers of new infections, Columbus was identified in 2013 as an eligible recipient for Part A of the Ryan White Treatment Extension Act of 2009. (The Ryan White Program is divided into five parts that serve different populations and regions based on HIV incidence rates. Part A provides funding to locations that are most severely affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic.) Columbus Public Health is the recipient of Part A funding for the Columbus Transitional Grant Area, which includes Delaware, Fairfield, Franklin, Licking, Madison, Morrow, Pickaway and Union counties.
More About Ryan White
The Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program was named for a courageous young man named Ryan White who was diagnosed with AIDS following a blood transfusion in December 1984.
Ryan White was diagnosed at age 13 while living in Kokomo, Indiana and was given six months to live. When Ryan White tried to return to school, he fought AIDS-related discrimination in his Indiana community. Along with his mother Jeanne White Ginder, Ryan White rallied for his right to attend school—gaining national attention—and became the face of public education about his disease. Surprising his doctors, Ryan White lived five years longer than predicted. He died in April 1990, one month before his high school graduation and only months before Congress passed the legislation bearing his name in August 1990—the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency (CARE) Act.
More than half of people living with diagnosed HIV in the United States receive services through the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program each year. That means more than half a million people received services through the program.
This information is provided from The Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program website. To learn more, click here.