HILO — A new, free hepatitis-C/HIV-testing clinic has opened in Keaau.
HILO — A new, free hepatitis-C/HIV-testing clinic has opened in Keaau.
The clinic, at the Hawaii Island HIV/AIDS Foundation Office, 16-204 MeleKahiwa, Suite 1, Keaau (next to Easter Seals), will be open from 4 to 8 p.m. every Tuesday night until further notice.
“Right now it will be every Tuesday night until … we don’t know how long. It will last as long as we have interest,” said foundation Executive Director Bruce Merrell.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated 156,000 U.S. Americans have undiagnosed HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
The CDC, for several years, has recommended that “everyone between the ages of 13 and 64 get tested for HIV at least once as part of routine health care.” Among Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders, the CDC says, 58 individuals were diagnosed with HIV in 2014; 19 were diagnosed with AIDS.
“(Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders) had the fourth-highest estimated rates of HIV diagnosis (10.6 per 100,000 people) in the United States by race/ethnicity, behind blacks/African Americans, Hispanics/Latinos and those of multiple races,” the CDC says online(https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/group/racialethnic/nhopi/index.html).
The rate for the state’s general population reached 12.4 per 100,000 in 2014, according to the Hawaii Department of Health. There were 468 people diagnosed with HIV in the state between 2010 and 2014, with 11 percent of the total being diagnosed in Hawaii County, Department of Health data shows.
Health officials have asked primary-care physicians to include HIV testing whenever routine lab work is ordered. The goal is to make affected individuals aware so they can get treatment that can prevent HIV from progressing to potentially fatal AIDS.
Early, consistent treatment can extend life expectancy to near normal, Merrell said. Early diagnosis also can allow education so infected individuals learn how to protect others.
Merrell said health officials also are especially concerned about the potential of hepatitis C in senior citizens. Hepatitis C, if left untreated, can cause liver disease. But it’s “very, very treatable” if detected through testing before liver disease develops, Merrell said.
People old enough to remember getting the polio vaccination, especially, should get tested for hepatitis C, he said.
According to MayoClinic.org, for hepatitis C, “the largest group at-risk includes everyone born between 1945 and 1965 — a population five times more likely to be infected than those born in other years.”
For HIV, Merrell said, “the CDC recommends testing at least once for that older population, just to make sure.”
The HIV/AIDS Foundation Tuesday evening testing clinic’s target population is elderly individuals for both hepatitis C and HIV testing.
Anyone can get tested at the Tuesday evening clinic, even though its primary goal is to serve individuals who are at high risk.
The CDC says as of 2010, men accounted for 80 percent of new infections of HIV, and most of those infections occurred in individuals ages 25 to 34, except among black U.S. Americans, with 38 percent of their new infections occurring in individuals ages 13 to 24.
For questions, call 982-8800 in Hilo or 331-8177 in Kona. There is a testing site in both locations.