A new AAP policy statement, appearing in the November 2011 Pediatrics (published online Oct. 31) outlines how pediatricians can perform an important function in identifying patients carrying HIV before they have a chance to spread the disease further.
Although there has been great progress in treatment and efforts to screen high risk populations continue, as of 2006 more than a million Americans carry the HIV virus, which includes 55,320 adolescents and young adults of whom nearly half are unaware of their infection (against an average of twenty percent of all HIV carriers who are unaware).
The AAP statement recommends that pediatricians offer routine HIV screening :
“Adolescents and HIV Infection:
The Pediatrician’s Role in Promoting Routine Testing.”
They recommend that in communities where the prevalence of HIV is more than 0.1 percent, early screening should take place in pediatric offices for all adolescents, beginning at ages 16 to 18.
In lower risk neighborhoods screening is still recommended for sexually active adolescents and those with other HIV risk factors, such as substance abuse. Pediatricians ought to provide an atmosphere of tolerance and thus facilitate opening up discussion in regard to sexual risk and sexual orientation, as well as drug use.
Physicians should also know and be aware of the symptoms of HIV, understand state laws regarding screening and testing of youth, and routinely assess patients behavior for signs of sexual activity and or substance abuse.
Another common sense approach is to screen adolescents that need testing for other STIs for HIV at the same time. Testing in emergency rooms and urgent care settings in high-risk areas can reach youth who do not receive regular preventative services.
In short :
The AAP statement promotes the goal of making discussions of sexual risk and HIV testing a routine part of adolescent health care.
Written by Rupert Wingate.