HIV Tests Not Yet as Routine as They Should Be

By: Lauran Neergaard

WASHINGTON - Two years after the government urged making HIV tests as common as cholesterol checks, there are small gains but still one in five people infected with the AIDS virus doesn't know it, scientists said Thursday.

Eleven states that once required special consent for HIV testing have changed their laws, a key step to making an HIV test part of the standard battery that patients expect.

But HIV specialists meeting Thursday said other barriers include physician confusion about the ease of today's rapid tests, which can cost as little as $15 - although many patients seem to accept them.

No more than 100 of the nation's 5,000 emergency rooms routinely test for HIV in patients who aren't critically ill, said Dr. John Bartlett of Johns Hopkins University, who co-chaired the Forum for Collaborative HIV Research meeting. Yet because so many HIV patients are poor or uninsured, ERs are the health-care setting most likely to find them.

And while every pregnant woman is supposed to be tested so steps can be taken to protect her unborn baby, about 40 percent aren't, he added.

HIV Tests Not Yet as Routine as They Should Be....