Aids Awareness | Illustration by Kayli Thompson | The Wright State Guardian
Dec. 1 was World AIDS Day, the kickoff to a month-long campaign for AIDS Awareness. Wright State University (WSU) has been actively involved in HIV/AIDS research and testing advocacy throughout the last several decades.
What is AIDS
HIV is a virus that attacks the cells in a person’s body that are designed to fight off illnesses, and when left untreated turns into AIDS, an immunodeficiency disorder that can kill an individual within a few years.
“HIV is a sexually transmitted infection (STI). It can also be spread by contact with infected blood or from mother to child during pregnancy, childbirth or breast-feeding,” said a representative of the Mayo Clinic staff earlier this year. “Without medication, it may take years before HIV weakens your immune system to the point that you have AIDS.”
While there is no cure for HIV or AIDS, medication has been developed to help delay the progression of the disease by several years. Symptoms appear similar to a flu virus and generally occur within a few weeks of initial transmission.
A red ribbon has been the symbol for AIDS awareness since 1991.
WSU’s AIDS advocacy and research
Although it does not appear that WSU may be engaged in any AIDS awareness events this year, the university has been in years past.
From Sept. 1991 to June 1996, a group of WSU faculty was involved in the Dayton-Columbus AIDS Prevention Research Project, a research program funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) as part of its Cooperative Agreement for AIDS Community-Based Outreach/Intervention Research.
“The goals of the Cooperative Agreement were to: (1) monitor the nature and extent of drug use and HIV-related risk-taking behavior in an out-of-treatment drug-using population and (2) assess the efficacy of various interventions designed to contain the spread of AIDS,” said a representative from the WSU Boonshoft School of Medicine.
In recent years, Wright State Physicians have encouraged students to get tested for HIV/AIDS.
“People can have HIV, yet still feel healthy,” said WSU Physician Robert L. Brandt, Jr., M.D. on World AIDS Day 2017. “We recommend that everyone ages 15 to 65 get tested for HIV at least once.”
WSU was a testing site for HIV/AIDS in Nov 2018. At-home HIV/AIDS tests are also available at many pharmacies and are encouraged, as many in-person testing opportunities are currently limited due to the global coronavirus pandemic.
For more information on HIV/AIDS, visit: https://hivcare.org/hiv-basics/?gclid=CjwKCAiA_Kz-BRAJEiwAhJNY7-58fbMpglsQtPe054n0lN0j4_GpQgA-88Ixdze-i_czOyxrpnMRohoCIHsQAvD_BwE
