When Michelle Smith got her acceptance letter, she was full of excitement but rattled with nerves. She was going to college, which meant new experiences. She and her parents had already talked about making safe decisions once she leaves home, but one thing in particular worried her the most. All she could think about was how her great-grandmother, who is now deceased, contracted HIV when she was much older, and eventually had full-blown AIDS. With college being a time of sexual freedom and high drug use, she was terrified of meeting the same fate.
According to a survey conducted by Discovery, 33 percent of students said they have sex multiple times a week, 12 percent admitted to having sex multiple times a day, and 18 percent reported to only having sex every few months to less than a few times a year.
Discovery also learned that 86 percent claim to have a range of one to 10 sex partners, with 10 percent confessing to having more than 15 sex partners, and 38 percent having two to four partners.
Sexual activity without the proper protection naturally leads to the spread of STDs, and in 2013, Shelby County had 530 new cases of Syphilis, a staggering 8,503 new cases of Chlamydia, and 2,515 new cases of Gonorrhea, per 100,000 people, according to the Shelby County Health Department.
Another threat to sexually active college students is contracting HIV, especially since Shelby County has the highest HIV rate in Tennessee according to HIV expert and associate anthropology professor, Michael Duke.
He also explained that women in the US are more likely to contract HIV through heterosexual contact, while men are more likely to get it from other men. In terms of drug-related HIV, sexual behaviors are less of a factor.
The Shelby County Health Department also reported 332 new cases of HIV per 100,000 people, and that doesn’t include the people who are unaware that they’ve contracted it.
Smith said her great-grandmother contracted HIV through unclean needles. Her uncle and his wife, who lived with her at the time, abused drugs and used her diabetic needles to take the drugs. Unaware of what they did, her great-grandmother would unknowingly use the needles after her son put them back. Thus, she contracted the virus, which eventually developed into AIDS. She had frequent stays in the hospital and died in 2009.
“I was disturbed when I found out,” Williams said. “We didn’t treat her any differently though. We still hugged and kissed her.”
Circulation of dirty needles is one of the ways HIV is transmitted, along with breast milk, blood, and sexual fluids, said Jacqueline De Fouw, nurse and health educator at the Student Health Center.
“What happens is, blood is left over from each user that injects themselves,” De Fouw said. “The further down the line a person is, the more types of blood they’re exposed to. The first to use the needle is fine, but those after are the ones at risk for contracting HIV.”
Programs such as the free clean needle exchange, which gives drug addicts clean needles in exchange for their dirty ones, could prevent some people feel like cases like these.
However, in order to know about and understand prevention initiatives, people need to understand what HIV is first, said De Fouw.
She explained that HIV is a virus that gets into the bloodstream. The body recognizes it as foreign and begins to fight it; however HIV also gets in the T cells, which fights the foreign things. Because of that, it ends up rapidly spreading throughout the body and weakens the immune system.
“When a person tests positive for HIV, the goal is to then prevent it from turning into AIDS,” De Fouw said.
To determine if HIV has developed into AIDS depends on three factors. If the person has a high viral load, an extremely low T cell count, and has suffered from opportunistic diseases, which are diseases that took advantage of the weak immune system, then they have AIDS instead of the virus.
Just like addicts who share needles, college students are exposed to contracting the virus, especially if they’re sexually active.
“They’re at a time where they live for the moment, and risky sex is one of the things they do,” De Fouw said. “If you’re not going to be abstinent, then using condoms every single sexual encounter is the only way to prevent contracting HIV or other STDs.”
To help students protect themselves, the Student Health Center gives out free condoms, which are provided by Planned Parenthood, from a grant that provides the university with the condoms. The center also provides dental dams, and brochures on the subject.
But it doesn’t stop there. Campus provides free HIV screening every Friday from 10 a.m-1 p.m., in the UC Iris room, where screening is conducted orally by trained Planned Parenthood counselors. There is also an indoor and outdoor facility that only has one window, and no one can see through it.
If they find someone is HIV positive, they take them to the health department to conduct more specific tests and refer them to organizations like the Ryan White Foundation and Friends for Life. The counseling center in Wilder Tower and the psychological counseling center in the Phycology Building provides additional services.
“I think it’s a good thing that they test every week,” Williams said. “I don’t neccesarily think that it’s promoting college students to have sex all the time, but I do think that it’s like saying if you do choose to have sex, then we offer testing.”
In addition to the resources offered on campus, it’s important for students to know that science in HIV has advanced, De Fouw said. After diagnosis, the person is put on anti-retroviral drugs, which have become increasingly effective. Along with medicine, it’s important to maintain very good nutrition, lots of rest, and practice healthy stress management.
“Another important thing to know is that repeated screenings are necessary after any risky sex encounter, especially unprotected,” De Fouw said. “If a person gets tested the day after they have risky sex, they’re going to test negatively for HIV because it takes a while for antibodies to build up. They actually may be HIV negative, but the test will be inaccurate because it’ll be too soon to tell.”
After the first test reads negative, the person needs to come back in three months to be retested, according to De Fouw. It can take up to one year for the virus to show in your system.
"People also need to know that if they have another risky sexual encounter, they will need to start the testing process over again,” De Fouw said.
The most important thing for people to take away from HIV education and awareness is to practice safe sex with no exceptions, De Fouw said. A couple also needs to discuss their statuses, getting tested, and their values towards sex.
“It is hard to do sometimes because it can get awkward and embarrassing, but if you’re going to share that part of yourself with someone else, both parties need to be on the same page,” De Fouw said.
