WASHINGTON (AP) – District of Columbia officials are urging 400,000 residents to be tested for HIV, an unprecedented push that they hope will reverse one of the country’s highest infection rates.

The city kicked off its campaign June 27 encouraging men, women and teenagers between the ages of 14 and 84 to take an oral swab test that delivers results in 20 minutes. The launch of the “Come Together D.C., Get Screened for HIV” program coincided with National HIV Testing Day.

The Department of Health will distribute 80,000 tests to hospital emergency rooms, private doctors’ offices and community health programs. If the supply is exhausted before the end of the year, then one-fifth of the key population will have been reached in the next six months, officials said.

“I don’t think you’ll find routine citywide testing anywhere in the country,” said Walter Smith, executive director of the D.C. Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, which recently recommended a citywide strategy for standard HIV screening.

The nation’s capital has the highest rate of new AIDS cases in the country, at 179.2 per 100,000 people. Almost 10,000 people in the city have the disease, with African-Americans disproportionately affected. The city does not have enough data to estimate how many people have HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

City officials want the rapid test to become as common as blood-pressure monitoring or a cholesterol check. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering a recommendation “strongly encouraging” doctors to offer HIV tests as a matter of course to patients ages 13 to 64.

“If we are serious about addressing this epidemic in our community, then screening for HIV has to become routine,” said Marsha Martin, who heads the city’s Administration for HIV Policy and Programs. “Because we’ll miss too many people otherwise.”

City officials hope those who test positive will change their sexual behavior and seek treatment.

But Patricia Nalls, executive director of the Women’s Collective, a nonprofit that provides care to HIV-positive women, said greater funding for treatment is also needed.

“So there’s going to be a group of people who find out they’re positive,” she said. “How are we going to take care of them?”

Martin said her administration plans to expanded outreach, counseling and treatment services. Under one program, HIV-positive residents would be provided with people who will help to get them through rough periods and stay on medication.