The highly effective medication, approved by the FDA in 2012, can be taken daily by those at high risk for contracting HIV, lowering their chances of getting infected with the virus. Combined, the changes in health care policy and the availability of anti-viral medicine have dealt HIV a crippling blow across the country, experts said. New HIV diagnoses have fallen overall in the U.S. for the past few years, according to CDC data. Now, local public health practitioners said, HIV is not the harbinger of death it once was.