Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2009. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Associated Press - August 28, 2009
Gillian Gaynair
The $225,000 multimedia marketing campaign is the first phase of a 5-year effort. Its advertisements feature D.C. residents holding signs that read, "Ask for the Test," which already can be seen on television. Health department officials say more ads will roll out in the coming weeks in print, on Metro and on radio stations. The campaign also includes a feature that allows residents to use text messaging to find the nearest HIV testing location to their home.
"Hopefully within a short period of time, people are going to understand that they're not going to go to the doctor without asking for an HIV test," said Mayor Adrian Fenty, who called HIV/AIDS the city's "greatest public health challenge."
According to a report released by D.C. health officials earlier this year, at least 3 percent of residents in the nation's capital are living with HIV or AIDS and every mode of transmission is on the rise. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention consider an epidemic "severe" when more than 1 percent of residents are affected.
D.C.'s reality is "directly related to how this government failed to respond to this epidemic for the last 20 years," D.C. Council member David Catania said Friday. Still, he praised the new HIV testing campaign as "acknowledgement that we're moving forward."
The first phase of the campaign will run for about four months. Come winter, health officials said the campaign will focus on helping residents talk to their partners about their HIV status and whether to use condoms. That will be followed an effort focused on using condoms.
As part of the HIV testing campaign, the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is teaming up with Pfizer Corp. to have their sales representatives encourage doctors to offer HIV testing to their patients.
Dr. Pierre Vigilance, the city's health department director, said Friday that HIV testing should be part of everyone's routine health exams, just like having their blood pressure taken.
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