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With barriers such as conspiracy beliefs about HIV/AIDS, African Americans distrust the US government and public health system. I concluded that African Americans are not regularly tested for HIV, along with the idea that patients were not seeking HIV screening offered at hospitals (10). The last solution is to establish a Free HIV Testing Day in Manhattan. The AIDS rate per 100,000 and people living with HIV/AIDS numbers are so high that Manhattan is in desperate of a prevention. In the study by Branson et al., the CDC, along with health-care providers, recommend that HIV testing be offered routinely to all patients in high HIV-prevalence health-care settings (10). Also all persons at high risk for HIV should be tested annually (10). So even if African American IDUs do not regularly make appointments to see the doctors, they have the opportunity to be tested for HIV every year free of charge. In the study by Lyss et al., 414 (95%) of 436 people participated and were tested in the free HIV testing study (11). If a Free HIV Testing Day was put into action, results like these can make a drastic change in the people living with HIV/AIDS cases. More people would be aware of their risk level and their health.

 

The location for Free HIV Testing Day would be at Harlem Hospital Center, located on 506 Lenox Avenue (135th Street) New York, NY 10037. Harlem Hospital Center has an excellent AIDS Center, treating one fifth of people living with HIV/AIDS in New York City (12). The residents in Manhattan coming to be tested would be treated with the utmost curiosity and respect by accepting those who continue to use drugs (13), using the rapid whole-blood HIV test. In the study by Lyss et al., the rapid test’s sensitivity is 100%, and the specificity was 99.94%, which will assure its accuracy (11). Afterwards, the residents will receive pamphlets on HIV awareness and prevention. Free HIV Testing Day will begin at 9:00 am to 8:00 pm on Saturday. This will allow adults who are working or attending school the same opportunity as those who might be unemployed. The Free HIV Testing Day available to Manhattan residents will be beneficial and contribute to the lowering of living HIV/AIDS cases in Manhattan.