The 2-year pilot program, announced Tuesday, will train pharmacists and retail store clinic staff at 24 sites -- 12 rural and 12 urban -- to deliver confidential HIV testing. The sites were chosen based on "high HIV prevalence or significant unmet HIV testing needs."

Training will focus on counseling and how to help those who test positive seek medical treatment.

The pilot is part of the agency's effort to support its 2006 recommendation that all adults and adolescents be tested for HIV at least once in their lives.

"We know that getting people tested, diagnosed, and linked to care are critical steps in reducing new HIV infections," Kevin Fenton, MD, director of CDC's National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention, said in a press release. "By bringing HIV testing into pharmacies, we believe we can reach more people by making testing more accessible and also reduce the stigma associated with HIV."

CDC estimates that 1.1 million people are living with HIV in the U.S., and that nearly one in five are unaware that they have HIV.

"Our goal is to make HIV testing as routine as a blood pressure check," Jonathan Mermin, MD, director of CDC's Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention said in the press release. "This initiative is one example of how we can make testing routine and help identify the hundreds of thousands of Americans who are unaware that they are infected."

CDC will use the pilot program to develop a "comprehensive tool kit" that pharmacists and retail clinic staff could use to implement HIV testing in their pharmacies.

The FDA is currently reviewing an at-home HIV test called OraQuick In-Home HIV Test. Approval for the test was recommended unanimously in May by an FDA advisory committee. The panel hoped the product would appeal to people at high-risk for HIV who weren't getting tested in a healthcare setting. If approved, OraQuick would be the first over-the-counter home HIV test.

By Emily P. Walker