HIV Cases Nearly Steady in Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania

The number of people testing HIV-positive at public health clinics in Allentown and Bethlehem held steady or dropped slightly last year. Each location recorded seven new infections. Bethlehem's ratio of positive HIV results fell from 11 out of 1,608 tested people in 2000 to 7 out of 1,584 people tested in 2001, according to preliminary tallies. In Allentown, seven of 2,312 people tested in 2001 were HIV-positive, compared to seven of 2,196 people tested in 2000.

The percentage of people returning for their test results was high for both Allentown (94 percent) and Bethlehem (78 percent). That contrasts with national CDC figures showing that 37 percent of those testing positive, and 44 percent of those testing negative, did not return for their results in 1998.

Local caseworkers tie the high return rate to their willingness to go out of their way to assure privacy, and to a change in the way they give out test results. Allentown caseworkers try to be open to wherever people are comfortable being tested, and have tested at people's homes, at McDonald's, and in a car. The figures at one particularly troublesome Bethlehem clinic, with a low 50 percent return rate in the mid-1990s, improved since the clinic required that clients come in to hear the results of all their tests, said Jose Cruz, HIV/AIDS community health coordinator.

National experts said the return rates for results are linked to the amount of time it takes to process tests, the degree of privacy given to clients, and how clients are notified.

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