AIDS Day: “˜Now is the time’

The statistics on AIDS and HIV grow more alarming every
year.

In the United States, as of 2002, 68 percent of estimated new
AIDS diagnoses among women were due to heterosexual contact.

Even more unsettling, in 2001 teenage girls aged 13-19
represented more than half of the reported HIV cases.

With stakes rising and the number of infections increasing, the
ancient misconception that HIV and AIDS solely affects a risk group
associated with homosexuals and drug users is not only deadly but
highly misleading.

“The epidemic is moving through (the) regular population
at an alarming rate. … It has moved well beyond those risk
groups,” said Edwin Bayrd, executive director of the UCLA
AIDS Institute.

The institute, the department of world arts and cultures, and
many other organizations and student groups have collaborated in
the struggle against AIDS by organizing a series of events in
recognition of World AIDS Day today, an event organizers say is
more important now than ever before.

From showcasing artworks conveying messages regarding AIDS from
around the world to free HIV testing at Bruin Plaza, UCLA World
AIDS Day organizers are determined to educate students and the
greater community about HIV prevention and other related
issues.

A controversial issue due to the sexual connotations of the
disease, HIV and AIDS started to be noticed in the 1980s, spreading
through North America, South America, Europe, Africa and Australia,
according to www.avert.org, an international AIDS charity.

Over twenty years later, a disease that was once unknown has
evolved into a pandemic.

“The minute you have something that affects 1,000 people,
it affects everyone,” said Tina Oakland, director of the
Center for Women & Men.

Although, in the United States the number of infections is still
highest in the homosexual population, there has been a significant
demographic shift, said Roger Bohman, a molecular, cell and
developmental biology professor who teaches “MCD Bio 40: AIDS
and other Sexually Transmitted Diseases.”

Bohman said AIDS used to mainly affect individuals who were
“predominately male, gay, white and now it’s shifted to
the African American and Latino population almost by a factor of
three.”

In Africa, a continent that has heavily felt the repercussions
of AIDS in its communities since the early 1980s, the infection is
commonly seen among a heterosexual group.

Bayrd said African wives are as faithful as their husbands are
promiscuous, and it is usually the husband that has promiscuous sex
and brings the disease back to his wife. He said women are more in
control of their sex lives in the United States ““ “This
isn’t Africa” ““ but said there is still more work
to be done towards HIV prevention.

Some researchers say moving past the stigmas associated with
this disease is a hurdle in itself.

“One thing we can do collectively is to fight it, to work
together to undermine the stigmatism and discrimination which have
prevented governments around the world from responding
appropriately to HIV,” said David Gere, an associate
professor in the department of world arts and cultures.

Gere, who spent six months in India, a country where there will
be an estimated 20 million infections by the end of the decade, met
with 50 native artists who used their artwork to educate people
about the fatal epidemic.

“When it comes to saving lives we turn to doctors and
public health officials. Artists have as much to contribute in
saving lives,” Gere said. “One puppet show, one music
concert can convey every piece of information needed to save
someone’s life.”

With the support of the UCLA International Institute, Gere was
able to gather all the artists in the city of Kolkata for a
workshop. Many of the ideas brainstormed during the workshop will
reemerge at UCLA for World AIDS Day.

Though this is the first time UCLA has organized such an
extensive agenda for World AIDS Day, for people closely involved in
the fight, every day is World AIDS Day.

“It’s a constant issue ““ nothing off the radar
screen,” said Oakland.

When in India, Gere was shocked that the artists he met felt
that they were working alone in their efforts to use art as a
communicative medium.

Similarly, he believes this disconnected feeling had been
present at UCLA as well.

From the 150 researchers working at the AIDS Institute to the
psychology department to the arts, people fighting for the same
cause but in different ways are finally meeting each other and
working together, Gere said.

“The epidemic is spreading out of control around the
world. A lot of people are now realizing that now is the time
““ can’t wait till tomorrow, can’t wait till next
year,” he said.

Launching their yearlong campaign, “I Know ““ And
Knowledge Is Power,” the UCLA AIDS institute and organizers
of the event hope to help de-stigmatize HIV testing as well.

Mobile testing units will be available in Bruin Plaza to
encourage students to know their HIV status. Knowing the status of
the infection can help patients control the disease, and just as
importantly, avoid it from affecting others.

A study in rural China, where community members were tested for
HIV, proves that knowing the status of the infection is imperative
even when those who did test positive did not receive medical
treatment, Bayrd said.

“Just knowing they were infected, (they) exercised moral
responsibility,” he said.

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