The Black AIDS Institute and Affiliates Team Up With Walgreens for National HIV Testing Day

Walgreens

In support of National HIV Testing Day (NHTD), June 27, the Black AIDS Institute and the Black Treatment Advocates Network (BTAN) once again have teamed up with Walgreens and Greater Than AIDS to provide free HIV testing at select Walgreens locations. The theme for National HIV Testing Day 2015 is "Take the Test. Take Control."

"When people know their status, are quickly linked to appropriate care and achieve viral suppression, they are 96 percent less likely to transmit the virus," says Rebekah Israel, training and capacity-building manager and interim mobilization manager for the Black AIDS Institute. "The problem is that there are too many people who simply do not know their HIV status, and that's what we're trying to change."

This was the fifth consecutive year that Walgreens offered free HIV testing to mark National HIV Testing Day. Testing was made available June 25-27 at approximately 304 Walgreens stores in 150 cities. Many stores provided private rooms and space for mobile testing vans. Trained counselors administered tests on-site and provided results within 20 minutes. Alere North America, BioLytical Laboratories, the DIVA Foundation and OraSure Technologies donated the rapid tests.

Although the jury's still out about how many people were tested over this past weekend, in 2014 roughly 10,000 tests were administered.

Justin Wooley, a program officer for community outreach at the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), believes that he was able to reach the same number this year. Wooley is former chair of BTAN in Chicago. BTAN helps link Black Americans living with HIV to care and treatment.

On NHTD, BTAN worked closely with Greater Than AIDS and Walgreens to make sure that urban communities such as New Orleans, Los Angeles and Melbourne, Fla., took part in the testing. BTAN, along with other organizations such as the NAACP and churches, encouraged community members to learn their status by taking advantage of the free HIV testing services. Social media campaigns also played a big role in this year's event.

"Everybody doesn't want to walk into an AIDS service organization or hospital or clinic to ask for an HIV test," Wooley says about efforts to help decrease stigma in African American communities. "If we can catch you when you're going in Walgreens while you're trying to get Skittles and soda pop, then we might have better success in reaching you."

Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that all Americans between the ages of 13 and 64 be tested for HIV as a routine part of their medical care, many Americans have never been tested or are not being tested as often as recommended, according to national surveys by KFF. Of the more than 1.2 million people living with HIV in the U.S., an estimated 1 in 7 do not know that they are infected, and only 3 in 10 are in ongoing care and treatment. The significance of knowing your status and, if you're positive, accessing care and treatment cannot be emphasized enough, especially among high-risk populations, such as MSM, injection drug users and their sexual partners, pregnant women and African Americans.

"We have come so far in our understanding of HIV," says Tina Hoff, senior vice president and director of health communication and media partnerships at KFF. "Today there are very effective treatments that not only help people with HIV to enjoy long, healthy lives but also significantly reduce the chances of passing the virus to others. Knowing one's status is a crucial first step."

"Walgreens is committed to being a part of the solution to end AIDS, and National HIV Testing Day provides a great opportunity to help share critical health information and encourage HIV testing," says Glen Pietrandoni, senior director of virology, specialty products and services at Walgreens. "We were proud to collaborate with the Black AIDS Institute and the Kaiser Family Foundation five years ago to help develop the Greater Than AIDS campaign, which is used as our primary testing and awareness platform for HIV at Walgreens. Our work with the Black AIDS Institute, Kaiser Family Foundation and Greater Than AIDS increases community access to testing and education, which we know is critical to being part of the solution to end AIDS."

April Eugene is a Philadelphia-based writer.