The city of Chicago is joining a federal effort to test a million African Americans for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Chicago Public Radio’s Chip Mitchell reports.

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African Americans account for 35 percent of Chicago’s population but 58 percent of the city’s new HIV cases. Physician Patricia Herrera treats some of them at a West Side clinic called the Ruth M. Rothstein CORE Center.

HERRERA: These patients often times present to the Emergency Department with advanced disease because they have not been diagnosed as being HIV-positive. So we have to identify patients by testing, to try to keep them healthier longer.

Toward that end, the CORE Center is about to get a big boost. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control is giving $1.9 million to Chicago for HIV screening targeting African Americans. The city’s Public Health Department will coordinate 70,000 tests for the virus at eight hospitals and clinics next year. That’ll nearly quadruple the number of HIV tests the city is providing this year.

I’m Chip Mitchell, Chicago Public Radio.