Push on for more HIV testing

WASHINGTON – There’s a new push to make testing for the AIDS virus as common as cholesterol checks.

Americans ages 15 to 64 should get an HIV test at least once – not just people considered at high risk for the virus, an independent panel that sets screening guidelines proposed Monday.

The draft guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force are the latest recommendations that aim to make HIV screening simply a routine part of a checkup, something a doctor can order with as little fuss as a cholesterol test or a mammogram. Since 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also has pushed for widespread, routine HIV screening.

Yet not nearly enough people have heeded that call: Of the more than 1.1 million Americans living with HIV, nearly 1 in 5 – almost 240,000 people – don’t know it. Not only is their own health at risk without treatment, they could unwittingly be spreading the virus to others.

The updated guidelines will bring this long-simmering issue before doctors and their patients again – emphasizing that public health experts agree on how important it is to test even people who don’t think they’re at risk, because they could be.

“It allows you to say, ‘This is a recommended test that we believe everybody should have. We’re not singling you out in any way,’ ” said task force member Dr. Douglas Owens, of Stanford University and the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System.

There are a number of ways to get tested. If you’re having blood drawn for other exams, the doctor can merely add HIV to the list – no extra pokes or swabs needed. Today’s rapid tests can cost less than $20 and require just rubbing a swab over the gums, with results ready in as little as 20 minutes. Last summer, the government approved a do-it-yourself at-home version that’s selling for about $40.