Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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Associated Press - Thursday November 29, 2001
Erin McClam, Associated Press Writer
Just 54 percent of people who reported being at high or medium risk said they had been tested for the virus that causes AIDS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
An even smaller proportion of the risk group - less than 25 percent - said they had been tested in the previous year. The study was released in advance of World AIDS Day, which is Saturday.
The results underscore a problem that has concerned health officials for years: A substantial segment of people with HIV don't even realize they have it and are probably spreading the infection.
The study cited lack of access to testing centers and a perceived lack of confidentiality as reasons some people don't get tested.
The risk factors for HIV included injection drug users, people who trade sex for money or drugs, men who have sex with other men and people with blood-clotting problems. Anyone who had sex with someone in the risk categories was also considered at risk.
The CDC study, conducted in 1999, asked more than 30,000 people whether they fit into any of the categories. Those who did were deemed at risk for HIV and asked to rate their risk.
In encouraging news, about 30 percent of people in the study said they had been tested for HIV, up from 26 percent in 1995 and just 5 percent in 1987, when AIDS was perceived to be mostly isolated among homosexual men.
Still, only 10 percent of those in the overall study said they had been tested in the previous year.
HIV testing rates appear to be higher for blacks than for whites. More than 70 percent of blacks at highest risk for HIV in the study said they had been tested, compared with 63 percent for Hispanics and just 50 percent for whites.
The study also found that blacks were most likely to seek an HIV test because they just wanted to know their HIV status, while whites were most likely to test because it was required for a job, surgery, insurance or military service.
Hispanics were roughly split among those two reasons and testing because it was recommended by a doctor or a sexual partner.
Blacks and Hispanics have accounted for more than half of the 775,000 AIDS cases reported in the United States since the epidemic began 20 years ago.
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