Vans to Offer AIDS Testing at Centers

Five specially equipped vans will offer free AIDS tests and counseling at drug and alcohol abuse centers throughout Los Angeles County this fall, but health experts say the program will fail to reach those who need it most--addicts and alcoholics not in treatment.

Active substance abusers are twice as likely to be infected with the human immunodeficiency virus as those enrolled in treatment programs, according to surveys by county health authorities.

But the county will not be allowed to provide AIDS testing and counseling services for that population under the terms of the $1.1-million grant the federal Center for Substance Abuse Treatment provided for the program.

Instead, the grant targets only those enrolled in treatment programs and their primary sex partners, said Richard Browne, chief of contract management for the drug abuse program office of the county Department of Health Services.

“This is an exciting program . . . my only hesitancy is I would like very much to extend it to people not in treatment,” said John Schunhoff, director of the county’s acquired immune deficiency syndrome programs.

Schunhoff said about 10% of active substance abusers are infected with the HIV virus, compared to about 5% of those in treatment, according to county surveys.

A spokeswoman for the national Center for Substance Abuse Treatment said the agency funds more than $10 million in programs that test and counsel active addicts and alcoholics, including mobile van programs in New York and Pittsburgh. But the Los Angeles County grant was drawn from a fund set aside for those enrolled in treatment programs.

“We didn’t recommend that the fund be restricted--Congress did,” spokeswoman Ellen Shapiro said.

County officials said they are optimistic they can obtain permission from the federal agency to expand the program in fiscal 1994-95 to include visits to public parks and street corners where drug users congregate. Drug addicts and alcoholics are considered at greater risk not only because some of them use contaminated needles, but because they frequently engage in unsafe sex, either to obtain drugs or because their inhibitions are lower when they are under the influence, Schunhoff said.

“My first question about this was: ‘Why are we talking to people in treatment and not doing outreach in parks where people are putting needles in their arms?’ ” said Neva Chauppette, the psychologist in charge of the mobile van program in the San Fernando Valley. “But I suspect that if we manage this component properly, that will happen in time.”

In the meantime, beginning in November, the vans will be used to conduct at least 5,000 blood tests this year in the parking lots of more than 220 substance abuse treatment centers in the county, Schunhoff said.

The five 40-foot vans are currently being converted at a cost of $100,000 apiece into mobile clinics, each with a waiting room, examination area and small office, Chauppette said.

They will offer anonymous and confidential AIDS tests, depending on the clients’ preference. In anonymous testing, clients are identified only by numerical codes, and the staff never knows their names. In confidential testing, clients identify themselves, but the test results are kept private.

Unlike other county programs in which free tests are offered but results take a week or two to come in, the vans will report the results in three days, Chauppette said.