A common misconception among college-age students is that they
are in a low risk group for HIV infection; the opposite is in fact
true.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently
estimated that at least half of all new cases of HIV infection are
among people under the age of 25, and most of this group is
infected sexually.
The first cases of AIDS were reported in 1981; three years later
the Human Immunodeficiency Virus was identified as the causative
agent. Today, almost 20 years later, there is no effective vaccine
or treatment, and the epidemic continues to grow.
Recent reports place the number of HIV positive people between
800,000 and 900,000, and the number of people living with AIDS at
300,000.
The CDC also reports that while the number of AIDS cases is
decreasing in people ages 13-25, due to advances in antiviral
therapy, the HIV infection rate is increasing.
This increase is mainly due to a rise in risky behaviors,
including sharing needles during intravenous drug use and
unprotected sex with untested or unknown individuals. Since HIV is
transmitted through direct contact with blood, semen, vaginal
secretions and breast milk, these activities are the most
dangerous.
“The greatest risk of infection probably comes from
denial,” or an unwillingness “to discuss risk factors
or sexual history with a partner,” according to Ann Brooks, a
nurse practitioner in the women’s health clinic at the Arthur
Ashe Student Health and Wellness Center.
Many college-age students are embarrassed to discuss HIV status
with their partner, contributing to a feeling of complacency.
Women who have sex with women are in the lowest risk group, but
studies are still unclear as to whether HIV can be transmitted
woman-to-woman via sexual contact.
Stereotypes tend to focus on men who have sex with men as being
the only group affected by HIV, but in reality, 61 percent of newly
diagnosed cases of HIV in people between the ages of 13 and 19 were
women. Women under 25 accounted for a full 47 percent of new cases
of HIV in 2000.
While prevention is still the best “treatment” for
HIV, there are a number of drugs that can combat the virus. These
drugs target various stages of the virus’ life cycle.
Protease inhibitors, for example, inhibit HIV’s ability to
make functional proteins and therefore mature viruses.
Most effective when used immediately after infection
(emphasizing the need for testing) and in combination, the goal of
the drugs is to simply lower the viral load, or the number of virus
particles in the body.
A vaccine using multiple components of HIV’s protein coat
to stimulate an immune response is currently in clinical trials,
but Dr. Jerome Zack, a professor in the Department of Microbiology,
Immunology, and Molecular Genetics at UCLA who studies how HIV
causes disease and is affected by stress levels, is not optimistic
about its efficacy.
He argues that “antibodies are only one arm of an
efficacious immune response,” and that the virus’
ability to mutate its coat proteins make it difficult for this type
of approach to prevent infection by all strains of the virus.
Although Zack is optimistic about an eventual effective vaccine,
he sees it requiring more advances.
Public awareness of HIV as a disease affecting all races,
genders, and sexual orientations has been slow in coming, as has a
cure.
In response, the government increased funding for HIV and AIDS
research by 13.1 percent for 2003.
Secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services Tommy
Thompson said in response to the continuing epidemic: “We are
leading the world on AIDS research and doing our part to stem the
tide of this global epidemic.”
While government involvement will surely slow the spread of HIV,
only personal responsibility, especially among groups with the
highest infections rates, such as college-age people, will stop
it.
This means engaging in low risk behavior: not using intravenous
drugs or not sharing needles, practicing all types of safe sex
(oral, vaginal and anal) with both men and women, and getting
tested regularly.
The Ashe Center provides both confidential and anonymous testing
for HIV.