The U. S. Preventive Services Task force, a government-backed health panel of clinicians and health researchers, is expected to make HIV testing a routine practice.

Officials close to the health panel say that a new recommendation on routine HIV screening could be made available for public comment before the end of 2012.

Michael Kharfen, from the Washington DC Department of Health, said, “This would be one of those major sea changes … moving away from what has been somewhat the segmentation of HIV – either by population, by geography.”

Kharfen, who played a frontline role in battling HIV epidemic in New York in the decade of 1980, added that it would be a tremendous leap, though it still would take culture change for medical providers.

He also recalled when the recommendation for diagnosis for the condition was made the victim almost certain that he/she was going to die.

As per the U. S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, an estimated 1.2 million people in the U. S. are suffering from HIV/AIDs, and of a fifth of those are unaware of their infection. Around 60,000 new HIV cases come to light every year.