Medical lab on wheels aims to test 12k Philly residents for HIV, hepatitis C

Since late last summer, a mobile screening lab — essentially a medical lab on wheels — has been hitting the streets of Southwest Philly to test residents for HIV and hepatitis C, the Philadelphia City Paper reported. The project, called Do One Thing, aims to eventually test 12,000 residents and has already tested 3,000 residents for HIV and 550 for hepatitis C, according to the report.

Led by a Brown University researcher, the mobile lab is an effort to combat the prevalence of hepatitis C, or what the city’s Health Commissioner Donald Schwarz called a “time bomb.”

“There will be a very large number of people in Philadelphia who will require diagnosis and treatment for hepatitis C,” Schwarz said to City Council. “We have been trying to do something about this epidemic that is invisible for the moment.”

Read the whole City Paper story here.