Health
Resource Center offers confidential
oral HIV testing
Karla Casillas
Online Forty-Niner
Contributing Writer
The Health Resource Center at Cal State Long Beach offers students a painless,
needle-free HIV test.
Since last February, oral HIV testing has been used at CSULB. It is easier to
administer and provides the same results as a blood-drawl test.
A swab is placed between a patient’s cheek and gum for five minutes to
draw antibodies from blood vessels in the mouth. Heidi Burkey, Health Resource
Center office supervisor, or any other HIV counselors, then drives the test to
a lab to be analyzed for free by the Long Beach Department of Health Services.
Test results are available two weeks later. The accuracy rate for the oral HIV
test is 99.6 percent, which Burkey said is more accurate than rapid HIV testing,
a method offered in the past. Regular blood-drawl tests have an accuracy rate
of 99.9 percent.
HIV testing is available every Wednesday between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. by appointment
in Room 101 of the Student Health Center.
Students are only required to provide their initials and birth date to increase
confidentiality. The appointments last for approximately 20 minutes. Students
meet with a counselor certified by the State Office of Aides, a division of the
Health and Human Services department,
before and after the tests are administered.
The first session is risk assessment and the second is used to discuss the HIV
test results, whether positive or negative. Thirty-six students were tested in
September.
If test results are positive, students are sent to the Long Beach Health Department
where various services such as free medical care, free counseling and partner
notification are offered.
According to the Long Beach Department of Health and Human Services, half of
the cumulative AIDS cases through June 30 were diagnosed among people between
the ages of 30 and 39.
One-third of people infected don’t know they have HIV according to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as it can take 10 years for HIV to
turn into AIDS.
“
It’s important [for students] to realize their behavior now can have a
negative outcome [they are] if not careful,” Burkey said.
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