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Millennials Not Receiving HIV Tests
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Half of millennial-aged men and women said they have never been tested for HIV outside of blood donation.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate that about 1.1 million individuals are living with HIV in the United States alone; about 166,000 are unaware of their status. One of the biggest challenges in the fight against the virus is that not enough individuals are getting tested in accordance with CDC recommendations.
Now, the CDC has released a Health Statistics Report that unfortunately further supports this claim. One of the report’s biggest findings was that individuals between the ages of 15 and 44 years of age are significantly more likely to have never been tested for the virus. The most common reason? The belief that exposure to the virus was unlikely.
In the past, an HIV diagnosis was equivalent to a death sentence; however, the advent of antiretroviral therapy, or ART, has made the condition manageable. Could this be why younger individuals are not going for recommended testing?
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