Current guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend that HIV testing be based on risk assessment. Routine HIV testing is recommended in settings where the prevalence of HIV infections is greater than one percent. In settings where the prevalence is less than one percent, testing is based on individual risk assessment by health care providers. HIV tests are offered to patients who report risky behavior, such as unprotected sex, injection drug use, or intercourse with a partner of the same sex. Tests also are offered to patients when clinical findings indicate the possibility of HIV infection or to patients who request testing. "For anybody who is sexually active, this should be a routine part of primary care," says lead author Curt G. Beckwith, MD, an infectious disease physician at The Miriam Hospital and Brown Medical School in Providence, RI. "We see people diagnosed for the first time every month. It's astonishing that opportunities have been missed to diagnose the patient previously. Either the physician or the patient doesn't think of it."
The number of people living with HIV infections in the United States continues to increase, according to recent CDC data, and 35 percent of new cases of HIV diagnosed fr
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Contact: Holly Korschun
hkorsch@emory.edu
404-727-3990
Emory University Health Sciences Center
30-Mar-2005