Task force calls for routine HIV testing for all adults

An influential U.S. panel is calling for HIV screening for all Americans aged 15 to 65, regardless of whether they are considered to be at high risk, a change that may help lift some of the stigma associated with HIV testing.

The new guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), a government-backed panel of doctors and scientists, now align with longstanding recommendations by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for testing of all adults aged 15 to 65, regardless of their risk.

Guidelines issued by the USPSTF in 2005 had recommended HIV screening for high-risk individuals.

Experts said the change, published on Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, will likely trigger coverage for the tests as a preventive service under the Affordable Care Act. Under President Barack Obama's healthcare law, insurers are required to cover preventive services that are recommended by the task force.

Currently, the healthcare law recommends coverage of HIV testing for adolescents and adults who are at high risk of infection.

"That was based on the 2005 USPSTF recommendations," Dr. Jeffrey Lennox, a professor of medicine at Emory University School of Medicine and chief of infectious disease at Grady Memorial Hospital, an inner-city hospital in Atlanta.

"Now, hopefully they will go back and recategorize that and recommend that it will be covered for every adult."

Joanne Peters, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force ranks preventive services based on the strength of the scientific evidence documenting their benefits.

"Preventive services with a 'grade' of A or B will be covered under these rules. This includes today's HIV screening recommendations," Peters said.

For doctors, the new recommendations should help clear up any confusion about testing among some primary-care doctors who have not been offering the test to all their adult patients. "Now, everybody agrees it should be done," Lennox said.

Task force member Dr. Douglas Owens, a medical professor at Stanford University, said, "We do hope the fact that the guidelines are all very similar will provide an impetus for people to offer screening because it is a very critical public-health problem."

50,000 NEW INFECTIONS A YEAR

Despite strides in reducing cases of HIV infection in the United States in the past three decades, as many as 50,000 Americans become infected with the virus each year.

The CDC estimates that almost 1.2 million people in the United States are infected with HIV, yet 20 percent to 25 percent of them do not know it.

"The Task Force's new recommendations will expand the number of Americans who know their HIV status and can take action to protect themselves and their partners," Dr. Jonathan Mermin, director of the CDC's Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention, said in a statement.