Long Beach health officials, faced with cutbacks in federal funding, warned Tuesday that free tests it offered for sexually transmitted diseases were cut last month.
The $1.3 million rollback, experts say, will surely undermine city efforts to manage the spread of disease and could reverse a recent downturn in the number of those who test positive.
City services were shuttered once money ran out as of July 1. These include the city’s mobile testing unit, services at the Ron Arias Health Equity Center in North Long Beach and prevention services like access to PrEP (Pre-exposure prophylaxis). Nine city health workers were affected by the cuts, none of whom have been transferred to a different department…