Most Americans have never had an HIV test, and less than a third of those most at-risk have been checked in at least the past year, according to new CDC data.
US health officials have been armed with funds and resources to launch a multi-pronged campaign to drastically reduce HIV transmissions in the near future, aiming for an end to new diagnoses by 2030.
First, they earmarked the 50 cities and seven rural areas with the highest rates of HIV transmissions in the country - most of which are in impoverished parts of the South, where many do not have health insurance.
Now, researchers are studying where the gaps are in testing, in order to prevent accidental transmissions from people who could be on viral-suppressing drugs, which make HIV untransmittable.
The new report published today in the CDC' Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, to coincidence with National HIV Testing Day, shows those gaps are many, gaping and widespread.
How to end new HIV diagnoses: This map (of 2015 stats) shows the South accounts for half of new HIV diagnoses, concentrated in 46 counties (out of America's 3,000 counties). Officials are trying to end new diagnoses by increasing the rate of testing
Fewer than 40 percent of all Americans were tested for HIV in the last year, and less than 30 percent of those deemed most at-risk - i.e. men who have sex with men, and intravenous drug users - had done so.
In the 50 cities with the highest rates of transmissions, fewer than 35 percent had been tested.
In the CDC's targeted rural areas, just 26 percent of people had been tested for the sexually-transmitted disease.
'Diagnosis and treatment are the first steps toward affording individuals living with HIV a
