As today is the National HIV Testing Day, the New York City authorities are offering free HIV tests to every adult in the Bronx, the city’s borough most affected by AIDS.

According to 2006 data, 3,745 New Yorkers were newly listed as HIV-positive – one quarter of them from the Bronx. AIDS killed 357 residents of the borough in 2006, about a third of all AIDS deaths in the city.

These concerning figures are supported by the findings of another survey released this week, which revealed that some 40 percent of New Yorkers with multiple sex partners did not use a condom the last time they had sex, thus exposing themselves to the risk of getting infected with HIV.

New York is considered the epicenter of the country’s AIDS crisis and where the number of herpes cases is above the national average.

According to a study by the Department of Health released earlier this month, one in four adult New Yorkers is infected with Herpes Simplex Virus-2, meaning approximately 26 percent. The national average of people infected with the virus is 19 percent.

The Herpes Simplex Virus-2 causes genital herpes. The situation is getting even worse, as the condition facilitates the spread of HIV and there is also the possibility, although rarely encountered, that the virus is transmitted to newborns. Genital herpes could actually double a person’s risk for contracting HIV.

The New York City Health Department’s initiative is considered the largest HIV testing initiative in the city’s history. People here have forty locations including hospitals, clinics, health centers, and places of worship, standing at their disposition with HIV tests.

In hospitals, if a person shows up in the emergency room with any other problem than to be tested for HIV, doctors will ask them whether he/she is willing to get tested, the health commissioner, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden said in an interview on Wednesday, according to the New York Times.

Of course any other person who willingly comes for a HIV test is immediately given one.

The campaign called “The Bronx Knows,” is aimed at reaching 250,000 Bronx adults who have never been tested. “We’d like to saturate the Bronx with testing,” Monica Sweeney, assistant commissioner for HIV prevention and control said, as quoted by AFP.