Officials hope rapid results will increase HIV testing

Health officials hope availability of a rapid-result HIV/AIDS test will encourage more people to be tested.

An estimated 900,000 Americans have HIV but a fourth of them don't know it. And 40,000 Americans are diagnosed with the infection each year.

As many as 15,000 Utahns may unknowingly be HIV-positive, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Fully 31 percent of those who test positive for the virus don't return to the test site to get their results, said Patti Pavey, executive director of the Salt Lake Valley Health Department. People also offer a host of reasons for not getting tested at all

Some are simply afraid or are fearful of needles. Some simply don't want to know. And there are people who have no medical home where they are comfortable being tested, while others fear the stigma and discrimination that can go with having HIV/AIDS. Others are unwilling to wait the traditional two weeks to get the results back. "That's a long time when you're waiting for this kind of information," Pavey said.

There are many reasons to be tested, Pavey said, including the ability to begin treatment immediately and to take precautions so that others are not placed at risk for getting the disease.

In Utah, there were 101 new HIV cases last year, a 55 percent jump from the year before. Of those, 92 percent are on the Wasatch Front, 75 percent in Salt Lake County. The number of HIV/AIDS infections in ethnic minorities is disproportionately high.

Free testing with results in 20 minutes is being offered today by the Salt Lake health department at the public health clinic, 610 S. 200 East. Free testing throughout the state is being offered all week. The schedule is available online at www.aidsinfoutah.org. Not all the sites offer the rapid test.

Representatives from the health department, the Utah AIDS Foundation, the state Department of Health and other agencies said at a Tuesday news conference that one way to reduce barriers to testing is to offer HIV/AIDS testing in nonmedical settings.

The new OraQuick test seems tailor-made for that. It's 99.6 percent accurate and requires no needles. On Monday nights the Utah AIDS Foundation offers walk-in AIDS testing with the rapid test, according to Stan Penfold, executive director, who noted that the number of people being tested has quadrupled since the rapid test became available.