|
National HIV Testing Day --- June 27, 2004
National HIV Testing Day is June 27. This annual event is sponsored by the National Association of People with
AIDS to encourage persons at risk for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection to get tested and learn their status.
This year's theme, "It's Better to Know,"
underscores the importance of being tested for HIV. An estimated
850,000--950,000 persons in the United States are HIV positive, and an estimated one in four are not aware of their infection (1). Persons who know they are infected can benefit from advances in medical care that can prolong their lives, and they can take action to prevent transmission to others.
HIV testing has become easier, more accessible, and less invasive in 2004. One antibody test can provide
preliminary results in as little as 20 minutes and can be used in both medical and nonclinical settings
(2). A new oral version of that test, approved by the Food and Drug Administration in April, will make getting tested even easier by eliminating the need for a finger-stick blood sample.
Additional information about where to get tested and local events being held to encourage testing among populations
at greatest risk (e.g., non-Hispanic blacks,
Hispanics, and men who have sex with men) is available at
http://www.hivtest.org.
References
- Fleming P, Byers RH, Sweeney PA, Daniels D, Karon JM, Janssen RS. HIV prevalence in the United States, 2000 [Abstract].
Presented at the 9th Conference on Retrovirus and Opportunistic Infections, Seattle, Washington, 2002.
- CDC. Approval of a new rapid test for HIV antibody. MMWR 2002;51:1051--2.
Use of trade names and commercial sources is for identification only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services.
References to non-CDC sites on the Internet are
provided as a service to MMWR readers and do not constitute or imply
endorsement of these organizations or their programs by CDC or the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services. CDC is not responsible for the content
of pages found at these sites. URL addresses listed in MMWR were current as of
the date of publication. |
Disclaimer
All MMWR HTML versions of articles are electronic conversions from ASCII text
into HTML. This conversion may have resulted in character translation or format errors in the HTML version.
Users should not rely on this HTML document, but are referred to the electronic PDF version and/or
the original MMWR paper copy for the official text, figures, and tables.
An original paper copy of this issue can be obtained from the Superintendent of Documents,
U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO), Washington, DC 20402-9371; telephone: (202) 512-1800.
Contact GPO for current prices.
**Questions or messages regarding errors in formatting should be addressed to
mmwrq@cdc.gov.
Page converted: 6/23/2004
|
|
