Prometheus 6

Outside the Neighborhood and Family Health Center on East 149th Street in the South Bronx, Melissa Sierra, 20, expressed concern on Wednesday that the focus on the Bronx would reinforce “a lot of stereotypes” about the borough. “It might keep people away,” she said.

City Is Pushing for H.I.V. Tests for All in Bronx
By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS

The New York City health department plans to announce on Thursday an ambitious three-year effort to give an H.I.V. test to every adult living in the Bronx, which has a far higher death rate from AIDS than any other borough. The campaign will begin with a push to make the voluntary testing routine in emergency rooms and storefront clinics, where city officials say that cumbersome consent procedures required by state law have deterred doctors from offering the tests.

“Routine would mean if you came into the emergency room for asthma or a broken leg, we test everyone for H.I.V., if they’re willing,” the health commissioner, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, said in an interview on Wednesday.