Background:
HIV counseling, testing, and referral program (CTR) are a major part of the Puerto Rico STD/HIV/AIDS Prevention Program's efforts to prevent new infections and to get infected persons into appropriate care.

Objective:
To assess differences in HIV tests by gender, age, and risk factor using data from the CTR system, in Puerto Rico during 2000-2004.

Method:
Descriptive and bivariate analyses were performed using the data from the CTR system. EPINFO 6.0 was used for statistical analysis.

Result:
CTS data indicated that 299,056 tests were conducted in Puerto Rico from 2000 through 2004. HIV testing sites and STD clinics accounted for 60.4% of all tests, and 53.5% of positive tests. More than half of HIV tests were requested by females (53.5%). The highest percentages of HIV tests were done in the age group of 20-29 for both genders. However, the 30-39 age group had the highest number of HIV positive tests among all age groups. An average of 2.4% of the HIV tests among all persons resulted positive.
The population of IDU obtained the highest percentages of HIV positive results among men, and among women, the highest percentages of positive results were among those with a sex partner at risk. The CTS data indicated that 78.2 % of tests were accompanied with post-test counseling. Men resulted positive more often than women for every age group (p<0.005).


Conclusion:
The IDU men and women who have a sex partner at risk were more likely to have a positive HIV test. Even though men had the highest probability of resulting positive on their HIV test, they were tested less often than women during 2000-2004.

Implications:
CTR system is useful in monitoring populations at risk of acquiring HIV.
Develop new HIV preventive campaigns that target messages or strategies to population who are at risk.