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WHEELING -- The surge of COVID-19 in late 2021 led to the stoppage of Ohio County's needle exchange program, which is now expected to remain closed for the next few months.
The program came up last year when the West Virginia Legislature passed a law requiring tight regulations on needle exchange programs, including a licensing fee, a one-to-one exchange, and penalties for violations. While Ohio County was given until Jan. 1 to submit paperwork for the continued operation of the program, the rise of the delta COVID variant caused a backlog of paperwork for numerous parts of the health department's operation, among them its needle exchange filing.
Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department Administrator Howard Gamble said the county prioritized its COVID response over smaller programs like the needle exchange.
He estimates it will take about two months before health department staff catches up on paperwork and submits it to the state for approval.
"It was a challenge, but at the end of the day, you have to do what's correct, which is that if you can't get your program completely in line with what the state requires, you've got to take it down until you can," Gamble said.
"Getting it filed and approved is beyond my control, but we hope to revisit the needle exchange within two months. If things are well with COVID, which I think we're going to be, and it goes down to the state health department for review, ... it takes a while on the Charleston end, and hopefully we'll have our needle exchange program before late spring, early summer."
In the meantime, Gamble said, the health department will begin tackling several human resources issues which had been put on hold due to the surge of COVID in the fall. Once the top priority matters are addressed, other programs, such as the needle exchange, can be handled in turn.
Gamble said the program grew since its inception to one or two people to nearly 30 in one day at its peak.
"At times, we had 25 to 30 people every Friday, plus during weekdays, coming to get clean needles," he said. "… You had to turn in so many to get so many; it wasn't like you could get a clean one no matter what. It was a one-for-one exchange."
No other publicly-operated needle exchange programs are known to exist locally, Gamble said. A program in Brooke and Hancock counties was similarly discontinued. The health department, Gamble added, continues to collect used needles as medical waste.
"Once we came down, locally, that was it. ... It was a way to get needles out of garbage cans and places someone would find them, and properly dispose of them," he said. "Now without that, it does raise concern. I can still accept needles, just like the city accepts pills with their drug takeback program. ... The needle exchange had a lot of little components beyond the one-to-one exchange."
With the lack of local exchange programs, Gamble said he's concerned on the impact to the community which benefits from those services. While he said he doesn't have specific data or examples to point to, the fact that the service was being used by a good number of people is a good reason to suspect that its absence may have negative consequences.
"We had a good amount of people who were participating in the program, taking a dirty needle and giving them clean," Gamble said. "Some of them may be using other sources in the area. A lot of these people will not buy needles, and we run the risk that, within several months, we'll begin to see an increase in diseases like hepatitis, HIV or skin infections.
"If you begin to see those trends, we could tie them to the needle exchange, or it could be tied to an increase in drug activity, other activities such as unprotected sex. But there was a program that was working, now you don't have that because of state requirements, and we just don't want to see those rates increasing."