Increased testing is crucial to battling HIV and AIDS in the nation’s capital, where they infect nearly 1 in 30 people and are considered a “common disease,” city council and health officials said Wednesday.
The District’s HIV/AIDS Administration is pressuring health care providers to make HIV testing part of routine patient treatment. Meanwhile, the city has asked for $4 million from the federal Centers for Disease Control to support a campaign aimed at encouraging people to get tested and practice safe sex.
Health officials want all medical providers in the city to implement an “opt-out” policy in which patients would be tested automatically for HIV unless they choose to refuse the test.
“Opt-out normalizes and destigmatizes HIV testing,” said Dr. Shannon Hader, who heads the HIV/AIDS Administration.
Many doctors in Washington are forcing patients to ask to be tested, rather than offering it to them.
Patients don’t seem to be asking. Hader said 70 percent of people newly diagnosed with HIV in the District had been to a medical provider within the past 12 months without being offered testing.
Hader said she hoped medical practitioners would adopt this policy voluntarily, but David Catania, who chairs the D.C. Council’s Committee on Health, said the government would legislate the policy if necessary.
Health officials also are working to improve condom access and distribution, one the most critical preventative measures in combating HIV.
Catania announced that by Sept. 6, all CVS stores would have condoms in readily accessible locations. Some CVS branches have kept condoms behind checkout counters or in locked cases, which can discourage their purchase and, critics say, increase unsafe sex practices that can lead to disease transmission.
An “edgy” multimedia ad campaign to encourage HIV testing, condom usage and communication between partners is also in the works, Hader said.
Black women will be highly targeted, as they account for 9 of every 10 women diagnosed with HIV, officials said.
Both Hader and D.C. Councilman Marion Barry emphasized the need of eliminating the misconception that HIV is “a gay white man’s disease.”
More than 70,000 people were tested for HIV in Washington in 2008, a 70 percent increase from 2007.
Committee members said they were “excited” by the new measures to combat Washington’s HIV and AIDS crisis, but acknowledged the sobering task of putting them into practice.
“We want a well-conceived, well-resourced plan,” Catania said. “Until there is a cure, this problem is not going away.”
