Ob/Gyn Group Recommends Routine HIV Testing For All Women

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August 2, 2008 1:40 a.m. EST

Nidhi Sharma - AHN News Writer

Washington D.C. (AHN) - Women ages 19 through 64 should be routinely tested for HIV. That's the new recommendation released Thursday by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG).

In a formal committee opinion published in the August issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the college said obstetrician-gynecologists play an important role in promoting HIV screening for their patients under the recommendations by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The new proposed guidelines suggest that repeat HIV testing should be offered at least annually to women who use injection drugs, have sex partners who are injection drug users or are HIV-positive, exchange sex for drugs or money or have been diagnosed with another sexually transmitted disease in the previous year. It also included women who have had more than one sexual partner since their most recent HIV test, the college recommends.

Blacks and Hispanics account for 82 percent of new diagnoses of HIV among women, although they are only 24 percent of American women. Among African-American women, the rate of AIDS diagnosis is 23 times the rate for white women and four times the rate for Hispanic women, the committee said.