As part of a pilot program, the city of Oakland began taking and using saliva samples from people who have tested positive for HIV. The program is designed to offer those in early stages of the virus increased access to medical care. NPR's Kelly McEvers talks with NPR health correspondent Rob Stein about the origins of the pilot program and what we know about how well it is working so far. ROB STEIN, BYLINE: Oakland's pilot program began with something that didn't make anyone happy. In mid-February, they began sending around 500 letters informing people who have HIV that their samples were being requested by local labs, for testing and other uses, like studying the effectiveness of antiretroviral drugs. There were howls of protest from anti-gay advocates and advocates for people living with HIV. They called it gross invasion of privacy. Dr. Lisa Herreras is director of the Public Health Division of the San Francisco Department of Public Health, and she says she understands where they're coming from. DR. LISA HERRERS: I mean, you can imagine when you're diagnosed with a virus, and then you find out there's a program like this in which the city of Oakland was sending out letters to everyone who has been diagnosed with HIV, it's not going to feel very good. But people in the AIDS community, there's been such a large drop in people testing for HIV, they say, wait a minute, there may be other people who have HIV and are not getting the tests that they need, who are being infected in their community. We need to be able to find those people and offer them services and maybe they can prevent another person from getting the disease. STEIN: So, how do you find them? Herreras says they got permission from the City Council and the HIV Community Planning Council, to call patients in groups who live and work in neighborhoods that have high rates of HIV. The idea was to see if people would be more likely to get tested if they knew it could help them find out whether they had HIV. She says they ended up getting a pretty good response. HERRERS: It was really fantastic. There was just an over-capacity of people wanting to get tested. STEIN: Now, people from all over the country and the world are offering their saliva to the lab. It's a new technology that the Centers for Disease Control just got funding for to do routine testing for the first time in September. STEIN: But Herreras says this pilot program was really all about how people would respond to being asked to take and provide samples. The question was how to get it done in a way that felt comfortable. HERRERS: The other thing is that people who were really afraid they had the virus, were afraid to take the test, and so we really wanted to reach out to them and say it's okay to take the test. If you test positive, it doesn't mean you have the virus, it means you are in fact infected with HIV. We want to know about you because you can help us design our health education programs to reduce the spread of HIV. STEIN: The city decided they would offer the samples back to the person who provided them, rather than send it out to a central lab. People could decide to have their HIV status posted on Facebook if they wanted. And the data on all of these tests was released publicly online. People who were concerned about people getting their information, they had a choice to opt out. In fact, just a handful did. HERRERS: We had people call and say, I don't want my name made public. We say, but your information is already public. You have no choice. We need your information to help you and other people, so how could you not want us to know? And then we can give you information and refer people who are in your situation to health care providers in the area. STEIN: To track the effectiveness of the program, the city hired a research firm. They hired a market research firm to track the effectiveness of the mailing. So far they haven't posted the results, because, Herreras says, they're still trying to figure it out. HERRERS: This is brand new, the oral testing program, so we really want to get the data about how effective it is. STEIN: Oakland's program may be unique. She says they'll probably be able to learn more as their numbers grow. For NPR News, I'm Rob Stein in San Francisco. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.