U.S. far from reaching HIV testing goals

Washington, November 21: Two years after the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommended routine HIV tests for Americans aged 13 to 64 years, the United States HIV testing goals, seem to be far from being accomplished as the AIDS epidemic continues to take-over the country. This was according to a report released during the three-day conference called the “Forum for Collaborative HIV Research” that was conducted in Washington D.C. on Thursday.

The conference was intended to review the AIDS epidemic in the country and how routine testing can help fight this disease.

Dr. John Bartlett, professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine's Division of Infectious Diseases, told via teleconference how routine HIV testing plays a significant role. "It's fast, it's cheap, it's easy, it's almost perfect in terms of positive or negative results, and it detects a lethal disease that can now be treated. It's highly cost-effective and it deals effectively with a major public health problem. This is a slam dunk," he said.

Veronica Miller, executive director of the Forum for Collaborative HIV Research agreed that HIV testing is important and that it could help save lives. She told the participants of the conference that, "While significant progress has been made in the two years since the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended routine testing, we are still nowhere near this being the national norm. Testing for HIV should be as routine as a flu shot.”

Since HIV testing is indeed very important, it requires the U.S. government to appropriate a large amount of fund for this project.

According to Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, "The U.S. must immediately appropriate $200 million in order to test 10 million people over the next three years. Massive scale-up of HIV testing is the only way to bring down the number of new infections. Identifying all those who are infected and linking them to treatment is the only way to break the chain of new infections and begin to address the nation's runaway epidemic."

There are almost 1.2 million Americans believed to be living with HIV. Out of those, as many as 2,50,000 people are not aware of their HIV status, and have never taken an HIV test before. In the year 2006 alone, more than 56,000 Americans were diagnosed with HIV.