U.S. aims to take HIV tests to high-risk people

U.S. aims to take HIV tests to high-risk people
An HIV test is performed in an image courtesy of the CDC. A program backed by U.S. health authorities brought HIV tests to about 24,000 people at high risk for infection who otherwise might have been missed by AIDS prevention efforts, officials said on Thursday. (Handout/Reuters)WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A program backed by U.S. healthauthorities brought HIV tests to about 24,000 people at highrisk for infection who otherwise might have been missed by AIDSprevention efforts, officials said on Thursday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describedthe results of a program it funded from 2004 to 2006 in whicheight private community-based AIDS outreach organizationsoffered rapid HIV tests in seven big cities.
The program was intended to bring testing to injection drugusers, homosexual and bisexual men and other people at highrisk for infection by the human immunodeficiency virus thatcauses AIDS rather than wait for them to come in for testing.
"We actually went to a variety of venues -- and thoseincluded places like parks, shelters, night clubs, healthfairs, syringe exchange sites (giving clean needles toinjection drug users). The idea here was to find places wherepeople at high risk might congregate or might seek services,"said Dr. Patrick Sullivan, a CDC AIDS prevention official.
"The demonstration project has ended and we hope to be ableto integrate the best parts of this into ongoing preventionprograms," Sullivan said.
The project was run in Boston, Chicago, Detroit, LosAngeles, San Francisco, Washington and Kansas City, Missouri.
About 23,900 people were given a rapid HIV test for whichresults are ready in 20 to 40 minutes rather than the couple ofweeks typically needed for the conventional blood test. In all,267 of them, about 1 percent, turned out to be HIV infected.
The accuracy of the quick test is comparable toconventional tests but it costs more. Representatives of theeight organizations, not CDC staffers, performed the testing.
About 39 percent of those getting the tests were black, 31percent Hispanic and 21 percent white, the CDC said.
Half reported having no health insurance and 9 percent werehomeless, the CDC said. Of those tested, about 17 percent weremen who have sex with men, a comparatively low proportioncompared to the overall population of HIV-infected Americans.
Sullivan said more than 1 million Americans are currentlyinfected with HIV and about a quarter of those are unaware theyare infected.
The CDC estimates that up to 70 percent of the new sexuallytransmitted infections in the United States are caused by these25 percent of infected people unaware of their HIV status.
"The problem of undiagnosed HIV infection is one of thethings that we see as important in confronting the HIV epidemicin the U.S.," Sullivan said in a telephone interview.
"We felt like based on this experience, this kind of HIVtesting in outreach settings really can help reach people athigh risk of infection, including racial and ethnic minorities,and is a good complement to the kind of testing in health caresettings that's already being implemented," Sullivan said.
More than 33 million people globally are infected with HIV.There is no cure although a cocktail of drugs can keep theinfection suppressed and patients healthy.
(Editing by Maggie Fox and Todd Eastham)