Widespread HIV testing sought in the Bronx

[flashl]

Source: CNN


A quarter of the city's residents infected with HIV live in the Bronx

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A three-year initiative will seek to give HIV tests to everyone in the Bronx from age 18 to 64, the New York City Department of Health announced Thursday.

The announcement comes on the heels of a report released Wednesday that found a high rate of "unsafe sexual behavior" in New York City.

"Of most concern, among men who have sex with men who had five or more partners in the past year, 36 percent did not use condoms consistently," Health Commissioner Thomas Freidan said in a statement released with the report. "This is a core group which is at high risk for getting, and spreading, HIV."

...

The Bronx has been particularly hard-hit, according to the report. A quarter of New Yorkers infected with HIV -- more than 21,000 people -- live in the Bronx, and the borough reports a third of the city's AIDS deaths each year.

CNN

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/06/26/bronx.hiv.testing/

[rainbow4321]

1. They need to stress what one local health care provider told me and my co-workers..

The H stands for "HUMAN"...said it in regards to local doctors' offices that are still in the "I have no high risk patients". Yeah, right, that is why my suburban county that is the wealthiest, whitest, reddest repuke county in TX had a 60% growth in new HIV cases in ONE year.

I'd like to see the number of physician offices/hospitals in the Bronx area that say that they definitely follow the CDC recommended guidelines of opting OUT for HIV testing instead of in. Make it a part of patients' annual physical/lab results just like cholesterol, blood sugar, thyroid testing. Any labwork someone gets when they go to the ER for WHATever reason needs to include an HIV screening and appropriate referrals/follow-up.
I know the local ER staff in our area hospitals are resistant to doing so...saying that it is something that should be left for one's primary doctor, that it is NOT what the ER staff should be used for, etc..We are not asking them to begin treatment, dammit, just do the test with the rest of the labwork they have to send off during a visit and at least give an unsuspecting patient the option of getting early treatment which could add 25+ years to their lives!!