HIV testing?

Question

How many people have not been tested for HIV even though they have had unprotected sex in the past? Just curious.

Answer 1

It impossible to tell I will tell you how many are infected & then you do the math. I'll post the site it came from if your looking for more answerers. Keep in mind this is just in the USA.



AIDS was first identified in the USA in 1981. The epidemic has now spread to every part of the USA and to all sectors of society.

It is thought that more than one million people are living with HIV in the USA and that more than half a million have died after developing AIDS.

American HIV surveillance data are not comprehensive so many statistics must be based on reports of AIDS diagnoses. In interpreting such AIDS statistics, it is important to remember that they do not correspond to new HIV infections. Most people live with HIV for several years before developing AIDS.

AIDS statistics
People living with AIDS
At the end of 2005, the CDC estimates that 437,982 people were living with AIDS in the USA.1 The chart below shows the ethnicities of these people, revealing that black Americans have been disproportionately affected.


The charts below show how adults and adolescents2 living with AIDS most likely became infected with HIV. Around 77% of adults and adolescents living with AIDS are men.


An estimated 1,411 children aged under 13 were living with AIDS at the end of 2005, most of whom probably acquired the infection from their mothers.

People with AIDS are surviving longer and are contributing to a steady increase in the number of people living with AIDS. This trend will continue as long as the number of new diagnoses exceeds the number of people dying each year.

AIDS diagnoses and deaths
In June 1981, the first cases of what is now known as AIDS were reported in the USA. During the 1980s, there were rapid increases in the number of AIDS cases and deaths of people with AIDS. Cases peaked with the 1993 expansion of the case definition3, and then declined. The most dramatic drops in both cases and deaths began in 1996, with the widespread use of combination antiretroviral therapy.

The rate of decrease in AIDS diagnoses slowed in the late 1990s. After reaching a plateau, the estimated number of diagnoses increased slightly each year from 2001 to 2005, reaching 45,669 in the last year. In total, an estimated 988,376 people have been diagnosed with AIDS.

The number of deaths among people with AIDS has remained relatively stable since 1999; there were an estimated 17,011 deaths in 2005. Since the beginning of the epidemic, an estimated 550,394 people with AIDS have died in the USA.

Who is affected by AIDS?
During the 1990s, the epidemic shifted steadily toward a growing proportion of AIDS cases among black people and Hispanics and in women, and toward a decreasing proportion in MSM, although this group remains the largest single exposure group. Black people and Hispanics have been disproportionately affected since the early years of the epidemic. In absolute numbers, blacks have outnumbered whites in new AIDS diagnoses and deaths since 1996, and in the number of people living with AIDS since 1998.

From 2000 to 2005, the estimated number of new AIDS cases increased in all racial/ethnic groups. Over the same period, the estimated number of new AIDS diagnoses increased by 17% among women and by 16% among men. The number of new cases probably due to heterosexual contact grew by 42%; cases probably due to sex between men grew by 24%; and the number among injecting drug users fell by less than 1%.

During 2005 there were an estimated 58 paediatric AIDS diagnoses, compared to 187 in 1999 and 799 in 1994. The decline in paediatric AIDS incidence is associated with more HIV testing of pregnant women and the use of zidovudine (AZT) by HIV-infected pregnant women and their newborn infants.

The age group 35-44 years accounted for 38% of all AIDS cases diagnosed in 2005. Nearly three-quarters of all people who have died with AIDS did not live to the age of 45.

HIV statistics
At the end of 2005, the CDC estimates that there were 476,749 people living with HIV/AIDS in the 37 areas that have a history of confidential name-based HIV reporting, based on reported diagnoses and deaths4. However, the total number of people living in the USA with HIV/AIDS is thought to be between 1,039,000 and 1,185,0005. The discrepancy between these figures is due to several factors including:

confidential name-based reporting of HIV diagnoses has not yet been implemented in all states6
anonymous tests, including home tests, are excluded from case reports
one in every four people living with HIV has not even had their infection diagnosed, let alone reported.7
During 2005, an estimated 38,133 new diagnoses of HIV infection were reported from the 37 areas with a history of confidential name-based reporting, a number that has remained relatively stable since 2001. Of these cases, 74% were among adult or adolescent males, 26% were among adult or adolescent females, and less than 1% were among children under 13 years of age. Recent HIV reports represent a mixture of people with recent infection and others who may have been infected in the past but are only now being diagnosed.

Interpreting HIV & AIDS statistics for the USA
In order to monitor the spread of the American epidemic and to assess the need for services and resources, there is a need for accurate surveillance. In the USA, statistics on both HIV and AIDS are collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and published in an annual report. The latest report was published in November 2006, and contains data up to the end of 2005.

The CDC surveillance report includes data on the number of people diagnosed with AIDS, the number living with AIDS and the number of people with AIDS who have died. Such AIDS statistics include not only the 50 states and the District of Columbia but also Puerto Rico, Guam, the US Pacific Islands and the US Virgin Islands. However, around 97.5% of the total number of people living with AIDS reside within the 50 states or the District of Columbia.

In recent years, the use of antiretroviral therapy has slowed the progression of HIV in many infected persons and hence contributed to a decline in AIDS incidence. This means that AIDS surveillance data are less able to represent trends in the incidence of HIV infection or the impact of the epidemic on the health-care system. In response, more states are now implementing HIV case reporting. This enables state and local areas to better estimate the size of the population living with HIV/AIDS and to predict the services and resources needed.

The CDC reports HIV diagnoses and the number of people living with HIV, using only data collected through confidential name-based reporting. By the end of 2005, confidential name-based reporting of adult and child HIV cases had been implemented by 38 states plus Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands and the US Virgin Islands. Of these 43 areas, only 37 have been reporting since at least 2001.

Estimates and reporting delays
There is often a delay between the time of diagnosis of HIV or AIDS, or the time of death, and the time at which the event is reported. Moreover, this delay may differ among different categories of people. For this reason the CDC estimates the number of diagnoses, deaths and people living with HIV or AIDS by adjusting for reporting delays, taking into account the differences between categories. The CDC also redistributes cases into exposure categories if none was initially reported. No adjustment is made for incomplete reporting. On this page, all numbers are CDC estimates unless stated otherwise.

More information
AVERT.org has a collection of USA statistics pages which look at different aspects of the American epidemic, including statistics by state.

We also have a more general page about HIV & AIDS in the USA, describing the history of the epidemic and how the nation has responded.


Written by Rob Noble.

Sources
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report 2005, (Vol. 17)
Notes and references
Someone is defined as "living with AIDS" if they have been diagnosed with an AIDS-defining condition and are believed to be alive. The definition includes some people who since diagnosis have recovered their health by taking antiretroviral therapy.
Adults and adolescents are defined as persons 13 years of age or older.
The CDC case definition lists medical conditions that determine an AIDS diagnosis. The most significant feature of the 1993 expansion of the definition was the inclusion of CD4 criteria. For the first time, an HIV-positive person could be diagnosed with AIDS on the basis of an extremely low CD4 cell count. The majority of such people would have gone on to develop one of the other AIDS-defining conditions, so would eventually have been included in the figures anyway. However, the expansion resulted in many people being diagnosed sooner than they would otherwise have been. This caused only a temporary distortion of the figures, which by 1996 had ceased to have a significant effect on trends.
Since 2001, the following 37 areas have had laws or regulations requiring confidential name-based HIV infection reporting: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the US Virgin Islands. Since July 1997, Florida has had confidential name-based HIV infection reporting only for new diagnoses.
Glynn M, Rhodes P. Estimated HIV prevalence in the United States at the end of 2003. National HIV Prevention Conference; June 2005; Atlanta
According to the number of AIDS cases reported to the CDC, the 37 areas with a history of confidential name-based reporting of HIV infection represent approximately 63% of the US epidemic.
Glynn M, Rhodes P. Estimated HIV prevalence in the United States at the end of 2003. National HIV Prevention Conference; June 2005; Atlanta
Last updated December 18, 2006
I hope this helps you.

Answer 2

There are probably millions of people out there who have never tested because they are scared to know the truth. I'm thankful that I'm married and monogamous and get tested every year when I have my annual exam because there are just too many diseases nowadays.