Testing Away HIV

The difference a few thousand mouth swabs can make

ABOUT A QUARTER of Americans with HIV don't know they have the virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the District, a city with a well-funded but historically dysfunctional HIV-AIDS program, that number might be even higher.

We say might because the D.C. Administration for HIV Policy and Programs (AHPP) still doesn't reliably track the spread of the virus in the city. Its best estimate, released Monday to the Mayor's Task Force on HIV and AIDS, is that about 25,000 people in the city are infected, but this is just a projection based on national CDC numbers. That's why the city's new drive to test everyone in the District between the ages of 14 and 84, which kicked off yesterday in Freedom Plaza, is long overdue.

The D.C. government wants to distribute 80,000 20-minute testing kits to hospitals, schools and local health organizations before the end of the year, with the goal of making rapid HIV screening a routine part of D.C. life. The tests require only a painless mouth swab. Their distribution will be backed by a marketing campaign, launched yesterday, to encourage District residents to get screened, which may help eliminate the stigma attached to HIV testing.

The doctors, nurses and public health workers who administer the tests will report all positive results back to the Administration for HIV Policy and Programs, which keeps individual testing records strictly confidential. In theory, the AHPP will use the data it accumulates to begin gauging the rate of HIV infection in the city. Then the District can start issuing the kinds of reports on the spread of the virus that have long been standard in cities such as Baltimore and New York -- theirs come out quarterly -- and finally begin targeting its HIV funding effectively.

It's an ambitious plan for the AHPP, a branch of the Department of Health that has so far failed to gather basic information about HIV in the District, even though it spent almost half a billion dollars in local and federal funds over the past eight years. It's also an appropriately bold counterpunch in the city's so-far losing fight with HIV: The District's rate of HIV infection rivals that of AIDS-ridden nations in sub-Saharan Africa.

The city's latest public health campaign won't work, however, if District residents don't take the time to get tested. So if you didn't drop by Freedom Plaza on your lunch break yesterday, find a clinic and get a free HIV screening. It only takes 20 minutes to take charge of your health.