Health officials will test the blood of more than 100,000 people in New York to measure more accurately the spread of the AIDS epidemic in the state, Governor Cuomo announced yesterday.
The State Health Commissioner, Dr. David Axelrod, said that the testing would begin in October and that it would be the largest study undertaken by any state to determine if the deadly AIDS virus remains confined chiefly to the two major risk groups - sexually active homosexuals and intravenous drug users.
A Health Department spokesman, Peter Slocum, said the study would take from six months to a year to complete and would cost $3.4 million. He said the blood would be taken anonymously from the specimens of hospital patients who, he said, would not be told that they were being tested or whether they tested positive for HIV, the virus that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome.
He said such a study would be unethical only if there were an effective, long-term treatment or a cure for AIDS and the state did not share it with those who were infected. 'Not a Screening Program'
''It's a blind, scientific research study,'' he said, ''not a screening program under which persons are told if their blood tested positive.''
Blood screening is performed by the armed forces and by blood banks to detect AIDS-infected blood. That screening differs from the new state study, which seeks scientific information.
At a news conference at his office in the World Trade Center, the Governor said: ''Present evidence indicates the disorder is not jumping dramatically to the general population.
''But we need more solid information, and this study will give public health officials a better understanding of how extensively the AIDS virus has spread through different population groups and different regions of the state and how it's communicated.''
Mr. Slocum said Health Department epidemiologists conducting the study would not know the identities of people who were tested. However, accompanying each blood sample will be descriptive information about the patient so that scientists will be able to tell whether the person belongs to one of the AIDS high-risk groups.
In June, Dr. Otis R. Bowen, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, told an AIDS conference in Washington that the Federal Government would take blood samples from 45,000 randomly selected people as part of a national survey to determine the number of people infected with AIDS. Issue of Confidentiality
He said such a study would be difficult because of issues of patient consent and confidentiality. He said it would be six months before the study would begin.
A similar study is being conducted in four hospitals by the Federal Centers for Disease Control.
Dr. Timothy Dondero, who is directing that program, said that no patient is informed of a positive test result and that tested specimens carry no identification. All told, he said, the program will test 3,600 specimens a year.
Dr. Dondero said he thought the New York study was ''a great idea.''
In addition to the testing study, Mr. Cuomo announced an expansion of state-financed methadone maintenance programs, making treatment available to 5,000 more addicts next year to help stop the spread of AIDS among intravenous drug users. Expansion of Test Centers
He said the state's 10 anonymous AIDS testing centers, four of them in New York City, would be expanded so that waiting time for a test would be reduced from two to three weeks to a few days.
He said the new AIDS programs he announced yesterday would cost $20 million, an expenditure he described as meager when compared with ''the billions and billions'' AIDS will ultimately cost.
Mr. Cuomo also criticized what he called ''simplistic'' responses to the AIDS epidemic that feature mandatory testing and the ''superior, holier-than-thou attitude'' that stigmatizes AIDS victims.
''The enemy is not homosexuals or IV drug users,'' he said. ''The enemy is the virus. Innocent children or babies born with the disease are not the enemy.''
He said the nation had an attitude ''that we must condemn someone'' that has produced ''easy'' political responses such as mandatory testing.
''So let's line 'em up and test all the prisoners,'' was a typical response, he said. ''Go get the immigrants and the aliens, give 'em a test.''
''Great,'' he said sarcastically. ''Now we've really done something.'' Opposes Mandatory Testing
A problem with such proposals, Mr. Cuomo said, is that Americans are the people with the highest reported incidence of AIDS. ''We're the ones with the AIDS and we're the ones who are doing all the traveling,'' he said.
Mandatory testing, the Governor said, was not good public health policy and ''would scare away those who could benefit the most.''
Photo of Governor Cuomo with State Health Commissioner Dr. David Axelrod, at news conference (NYT/Chester Higgins Jr.)