The five HIV cases detected in Cumberland County so far this year do not appear to be connected, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

“The Maine CDC has found no epidemiological link” among the cases, based on preliminary data, Lindsay Hammes, a spokesperson for the agency, said in a statement on Wednesday. An epidemiologically linked case is one in which an infected person had contact with at least one other person infected with the same virus.

Hammes did not provide information about where the cases in Cumberland County were detected.

Bridget Rauscher, the city of Portland’s public health director, said she didn’t know whether any of the Cumberland County cases were detected in Portland. She said the health department has been preparing for an increase since seeing cases rise in Bangor.

Since October 2023, Bangor has logged 30 HIV cases, primarily impacting the city’s homeless population, according to the Maine CDC. As the number of cases in Bangor has grown, the Maine CDC has gone from classifying them as a “cluster” to an outbreak.

Cumberland County’s cases are not currently considered by the Maine CDC as either an outbreak or a cluster, which Hammes said in the statement “refers to new diagnoses that may be grouped by similar epidemiological features or matching viral sequences.”

Hammes said the cases in Cumberland County “share a common risk factor with cases seen in Penobscot County; injection drug use.”

Rauscher said Portland’s health agency is ramping up testing and awareness efforts, including increasing the frequency of testing from annually to every three months for people most at-risk of contracting HIV. The Maine CDC is also now recommending testing every three months for at-risk populations.

“Unfortunately, we knew we were bound to see an increase in cases even though what we are experiencing here is not considered an outbreak,” Rauscher said. 

Statewide, the Maine CDC reported 55 HIV cases this year through October — the latest data available. In 2024, Maine recorded 68 HIV cases.

Dr. Stephen Rawlings, medical director of MaineHealth’s Adult Specialty Care Clinic in Portland, which focuses on HIV patients, said they are increasing testing and trying to raise awareness about HIV prevention and treatment.

“There’s many more cases than we’re used to, even though it’s five this year compared to we usually have one per year,” Rawlings said. “It warrants extra attention.”

Rawlings said raised awareness among patients and medical professionals means it’s more likely that HIV can be prevented and cases minimized. Treatments, even after infections, have also improved. The HIV epidemic peaked at 16.2 deaths per 100,000 population in 1995, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, before many effective treatments became widely available. The death rate has dropped to about 2 per 100,000 population in recent years, according to the CDC.

“The medical advances over the past 10 years have been outstanding. The medicines just keep getting better,” Rawlings said. “But we are doing such a good job that people are forgetting about it, and not doing the testing.”

HIV testing is available at the Portland Public Health clinic, at 39 Forest Ave. The clinic also operates a syringe exchange program to help provide clean needles for people with substance use disorder. Rauscher also said Portland intends to expand its mobile health efforts.

The Frannie Peabody Center, which provides HIV prevention services in Cumberland and York counties and distributes self-test kits across the state, is expanding HIV walk-in testing hours at its Danforth Street clinic to every Monday and Wednesday from 12-5 p.m.

People can also come in to self-test outside of those hours, said Katie Rutherford, executive director of the center. Rutherford said health care providers in Cumberland County are meeting to figure out “ways in which we can collaborate.”

The center has partnered with Penobscot County providers to distribute tests amid the ongoing HIV outbreak in Bangor.

Center employees have also distributed test kits in the Lewiston-Auburn area, which Rutherford said faces similar challenges as Bangor and Portland. Spurwink, a Portland-based mental health clinic, provides syringe and harm reduction services in Lewiston.

In Bangor, health professionals initially struggled to reach the homeless population because local infectious disease services were concentrated in larger facilities, not in the community, said Jennifer Gunderman, executive director of Bangor Public Health. Gunderman said the city has brought HIV services to the homeless population. In a previous interview with the Press Herald, Gunderman said they set up mobile health services that offer rapid HIV tests.

“This isn’t an outbreak that just goes away,” Gunderman said. “We now have people in our community that will be living with HIV for the rest of their lives, and we need to make sure that we have the systems in place to provide treatment, care and ongoing prevention efforts.”