Saturday, August 30, 2008
AIDS prevention depends on knowing who has it
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Pam Meador
Meador is the director of the Drop-In Center, a program of the Council of Community Services in Roanoke.
Every 12 seconds another person contracts HIV.
Every 16 seconds another person dies from AIDS.
In 1981, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported five cases of pneumocystis pneumonia in healthy homosexual men in Los Angeles -- those turned out to be the first reported cases of AIDS.
On Aug. 2 of this year, the CDC reported that the "HIV epidemic is and has been worse than previously known." The statistics show that approximately 56,300 new cases of HIV occurred in the United States alone in 2006, a rate that is almost 40 percent higher than the past estimates of 40,000 new cases.
In 2007, Virginia reported a total of 19,171 people living with HIV or AIDS. There were 1,136 newly identified documented cases of HIV in 2007. In the first quarter of 2008, the number of people living with HIV/AIDS increased to 19,537, and newly identified, documented cases are already at 321. (Please remember that the word "documented" is crucial when discussing HIV/AIDS statistics).
Yes, the United States recorded 56,300 new cases in 2006, but guess what? Those are only the documented cases. The CDC estimates that one-quarter of HIV-infected individuals don't even know it, and these folks account for more than half of all new infections.
You have to know you have something to prevent spreading it. Your best friend or your mother can't deem you HIV-negative because you look healthy or because you are asymptomatic. Knowing you are infected is the first step to taking care of yourself and not infecting others. The only sure way to know whether you have HIV is to take the test.
Research and technology have paved the road for folks with HIV to live a long and healthy life. Roanoke offers some of the best care and support services for persons living with HIV/AIDS in the state. HIV/AIDS is no longer a death sentence -- take the test.
Prevention efforts have come so far in the last 25 plus years. In the early days of the epidemic, public health officials emphasized the use of condoms. HIV prevention messages were in your face. The message is still the same: HIV is preventable -- take the test.
Anyone who is 13 years or older can receive HIV testing and prevention counseling. The growing trend of middle- and high-school youth believing that sex is only sex if it can get someone pregnant is ridiculous. Pregnancy is a huge deal, but what is not being taught is the fact that all that other stuff they are doing that is considered "not real sex" is extremely high-risk behavior for HIV and other STDs.
Just because you can't get pregnant from oral or anal sex does not make it safe. According to the new CDC data, more new HIV infections occurred among young people aged 13 to 29 years than any other age group (34 percent, or 19,200 people). If you even suspect that your child is sexually active, and, again, do not discount oral sex, talk with them about risk. If you can't, find someone who can or call The Drop-In Center at (540) 982-2437. Like anything else, education is the key.
Let's face it folks, the CDC is right: The "rates of HIV infection in the United States are unacceptably high, and far too many persons at risk are not being reached." Because prevention practices can only be as effective as the people they reach, the CDC recommends that "everyone in the United States aged 13 to 64 -- regardless of perceived risk -- get tested for HIV to help stop the spread of this disease."
Regardless of gender, color, ethnicity or sexual orientation, test often. It's your life: Respect it and protect it; no one else will do it for you. Take the test.
