On Thursday February 7th the Ohio AIDS Coalition will be hosting National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness day at Otterbein College, providing free confidential AIDS tests for all students and faculty.
From 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Thursday, representatives from the AIDS Task Force will be in the Campus Center handing out free condoms, and general information on HIV, AIDS and other STD's.
At the same time, HIV tests will be performed by an AIDS Task Force employee in the Health Center located at 78 W. Home St., east of the Campus Center.
The tests are performed by swabbing the inside of the mouth, and results are available within twenty minutes.
"It's easy, painless and confidential" Says Bill Arnold, a 2006 Otterbein graduate and Program Specialist for the Ohio AIDS Coalition. "Once it's done you know where you stand and what you can do to stay at that point."
Counselors will be standing by to offer advice about HIV/AIDS, while students wait for their test results.
"It is nerve wracking while you are waiting for the results, because of the 'what if' factor. But that is exactly what this is about, 'what if'. What if you were infected and didn't know and spread it unknowingly" says Arnold. "We are spreading awareness because it is happening everywhere in all age groups."
According to globalhealthreporting.org, a website developed and operated by the Kaiser Family Foundation that provides the latest information and statistics about HIV/AIDS, at the end of 2007, 33.2 million people worldwide were living with HIV/AIDS.
In 2007, approximately 2.5 million people worldwide became infected with HIV/AIDS and more than 2 million people died due to AIDS related causes, according to the website.
Women make up 50 percent of the HIV/AIDS population, and people under the age of 25 make up half of all new HIV outbreaks worldwide, also according to the website.
Statistics from the same website showed that new HIV infections in children and adults over the age of 15 in North America alone in 2007 were 46,000, making North America the fifth highest region in total number of outbreaks worldwide.
According to Arnold the HIV tests are being performed because there is blindness about HIV. "People think of it as an international epidemic and do not think it is happening here, but it is."
The Columbus AIDS Task Force also offers walk-in HIV testing at their home office everyday from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 1751 E. Long St. in Columbus.
