ATLANTA - Few of the 59 HIV-positive Georgia teenagers in a study were aware of the risk of being sexually active and some were not treated for months after their diagnosis, federal officials said Tuesday.
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Only one-fifth of the teens - ages 13 to 19 - were diagnosed within six months of being infected, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. CDC and Emory University officials studied the teens at Grady's Infectious Disease Program for Adolescents between 1999 and 2002.
Although the study mainly involved urban black youth from Atlanta's highest poverty areas, health officials said all sexually active adolescents are at risk of acquiring HIV and should be tested.
"Fifty-nine with HIV is just the tip of the iceberg," said Dr. David Levine, an associate professor of clinical pediatrics at Morehouse School of Medicine, who referred patients in the study to the Grady HIV clinic.
"The vast majority of teenagers out there - we really have no clue how many are infected."
The problem is particularly pronounced in Southern states, which have the highest rates of HIV in the country, Dr. Levine said.
"We're talking about the whole South - we need to be more aggressive about testing," Dr. Levine said. "In Atlanta, we are in one of the epicenters."
Most of the infected teens discovered they were HIV-positive through routine screenings and a third of the 35 girls in the study were pregnant at the time of their diagnosis.
Only four requested testing because they thought they were at risk, said CDC researcher Althea Grant, who conducted the study.
More than half of the HIV-positive boys regularly had sex with other males. The girls studied were heterosexual.
About 8 percent of the teens had already developed AIDS when they were diagnosed HIV positive and 16 teens had other sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis or gonorrhea.
