AEGiS-Miami Herald: Few Sign Up for AIDS Virus Test

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1985. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Few Sign Up for AIDS Virus Test

Miami Herald - Tuesday, July 9, 1985
Ray Huard, Herald Staff Writer

Only a few people signed up with the Palm Beach County Health Department Monday to take blood tests to detect possible exposure to the virus linked to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, or AIDS. "We haven't had an avalanche or a large response," said Charlene Williams, a Health Department infection control nurse. Monday was the first day people could sign up for the blood tests, which the department will begin offering July 15.

"We're not encouraging people to come in at all," Williams said. "We're not promoting it. We're just providing it." Williams said the tests are unreliable because they do not detect AIDS. Rather, she said, they detect only the antibody the blood system develops when exposed to the virus believed to cause AIDS, a virus called HTLV-III. The tests had been available only at blood banks. Health officials worried that people in AIDS risk groups -- homosexual or bisexual men, intravenous drug users, hemophiliacs and those receiving blood transfusions -- would go to blood banks on the pretense of giving blood so they could get the tests. "Hopefully, we'll catch all the people who would go to the blood banks to get the test," Williams said. People wanting the tests can schedule appointments with the Health Department by telephoning 837-4891 in North County, 272-0511 in South County or 924-2114 in the Glades area.
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