A healthy change

The proposal to make HIV screening into a routine test deserves to be supported since it will reduce the number of AIDS-related deaths, especially in the Latino community.

The Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) no longer means a death sentence with the appearance of medical treatments that allow those infected to survive. But early detection makes the difference.

Given this, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has recommended that HIV screening simply be a routine part of a check-up for people ages 15-64, not just for people considered at high risk for the virus as is the current practice.

We believe this is an excellent proposal that benefits everyone. It is a wise preventive policy that removes the stigma of HIV screening making it as ordinary as a cholesterol test. The screening is extremely accurate and can be done with a simple blood test at low cost.

It is estimated that nearly 1 in 5 HIV-positive individuals don’t know it. These people may inadvertently spread the virus to others and, as well, they run the risk of not starting treatment early enough.

Latinos are disproportionately represented among the estimated 240,000 who are part of this group. This means that a significant number of deaths from AIDS among Hispanics were diagnosed too late for the treatment to make a difference.

We believe that increasing the number of people receiving HIV screening as part of a regular medical check-up will reduce the estimated 50,000 new cases annually in the U.S.

The new guidelines are currently posted for public comment; we hope that they receive the necessary support to make this very good public health recommendation a reality.