evidence: Vice President Mike Pence's History Managing Indiana's HIV Crisis As Governor Under Scrutiny Now That He's Overseeing Federal Coronavirus Response (CNN) -- When President Donald Trump appointed Vice President Mike Pence in charge of the U.S. government's response to the novel coronavirus on Wednesday, he said the former Indiana governor had "a certain talent for this." [...] The Indiana emergency peaked during Pence's governorship, when public health officials noticed a cluster of HIV and hepatitis C in rural Indiana around November 2014. It was the largest outbreak of the virus in the state's history, NPR reported at the time. [...] After this story published, Surgeon General Jerome Adams, who served as Indiana's state health commissioner during the HIV crisis, said efforts taken by himself and Pence served as an example to other states in handling an HIV outbreak.