DPH Issues Clinical Advisory Recommending Routine HIV Screening in Clinical Settings

Expands campaign to encourage everyone to know their HIV status.

Download this press release in available foreign languages:

Portuguese (PDF) | Word
Spanish (PDF) | Word

BOSTON — In recognition of HIV Testing Week (June 22 - 27), the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) has released a clinical advisory to primary care providers across the state encouraging HIV screening of all patients. The advisory is accompanied by an expansion of the Department’s awareness campaign, Get Talking, Get Tested. This campaignencourages all residents to talk to their physicians about HIV testing, and to make HIV testing part of their medical routine.

In September 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued the Revised Recommendations for HIV Testing of Adults, Adolescents, and Pregnant Women in Health-Care Settings. These revised CDC recommendations, and the new DPH clinical advisory, advocate for routine HIV screening as part of the normal standard of care provided to patients, regardless of the patient’s motivation for seeking health care or whether the patient presents with symptoms of HIV infection. The advisory issued today also streamlines the process for obtaining patient consent for testing. Massachusetts law requires written informed consent for HIV testing.

“We have made progress in our efforts to prevent HIV infections in our state,” said DPH Commissioner John Auerbach, pointing to a 25% decrease in the number of HIV diagnoses over the past five years. “However, we know there is always more to be done, and making HIV testing a more routine part of medical care can only help. This advisory encourages clinicians to offer HIV testing to all of their patients as a routine part of health care, and it seeks to improve the consent process so as to remove that as a potential barrier to testing.”

Routine HIV testing in primary care settings will help people find out their status sooner, so they can benefit from earlier medical treatment if they are HIV-positive. It will allow clinicians to identify individuals living with HIV infection who would otherwise not have been tested, decreasing the number of HIV-positive patients late in accessing care. Early identification of HIV infection and entry to care can reduce morbidity, mortality and transmission to others. From 2005 to 2007 in Massachusetts, 31% of all individuals newly diagnosed with HIV infection received an AIDS diagnosis within two months (Massachusetts HIV/AIDS Epidemic at a Glance Factsheet, November 2008).

The expanded Get Talking, Get Tested campaign supports the release of the clinical advisory by encouraging residents to talk to their doctor about HIV testing. The campaign is running for the month of June across the entire state, with placement of campaign posters on public transportation and billboards.

The clinical advisory, accompanying documents, and a complete list of state-funded, free HIV counseling and testing sites is available at www.mass.gov/dph/aids.

# # #