Baltimore Initiative Aims to Increase HIV Testing, Counseling

Hoping to stem the skyrocketing number of new HIV cases in Northwest Baltimore, politicians, health officials and community leaders have launched a wide-ranging initiative so that more residents are tested for the virus. The plan includes opening new testing sites and drug treatment slots, as well as tapping such resources as churches, anti-crime programs and social service agencies.

The Maryland Partners PUSH Campaign (Partners United to Stop HIV) is spending what some consider a modest sum on the problem -- about $90,000 -- and its ideas are not new. But observers say the effort, which Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, (D-Baltimore), announced in conjunction with World AIDS Day, is a significant step to turn around dismal statistics. Every year for the past five, state figures show, Northwest Baltimore has shown an average 35 percent increase in new HIV infections, or about 55 new cases.

With the new campaign, five new HIV testing and counseling sites will be established in the city, including two in Northwest Baltimore. Thirty-one drug treatment slots in the city will be earmarked for people with HIV/AIDS. The AIDS Administration will train about 40 parole and probation officers, as well as 80 staffers in the four "HotSpot" anti-crime teams, to make HIV counseling a routine part of their work. Also, as part of the campaign, the city's 14 methadone clinics soon will provide free HIV testing and counseling, and 50 city churches will distribute prevention information in their bulletins. Officials hope during the next six months to boost HIV testing in Northwest Baltimore by 20 percent, or an additional 4,000 people. Officials estimate that 6,000 Baltimore residents have HIV and do not know it.

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