Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
Once infected by HIV, a person can carry the virus for seven to 10 years without ever showing any symptoms.
However, HIV will show up on a test within three months of a person being infected.
And HIV/AIDS does not discriminate. The disease doesn't care if a person is male or female, white or black, rich or poor, young or old, Christian or atheist, gay or straight.
Two reasons for Friday's annual World AIDS Day is to encourage people to learn more about the disease and to get tested.
World AIDS Day takes place every year on Dec. 1. Started in 1988, the day is used to help raise money to fight the disease, increase awareness, fight prejudice and improve education. World AIDS Day originally was organized by UNAIDS, who chose the theme after consultation with other organizations. However, in 2005 UNAIDS handed over responsibility for World AIDS Day to an independent organization known as The World AIDS Campaign, according to avert.org
The WAC's slogan for its work is "Stop AIDS: Keep the Promise," which is an appeal to governments, policy makers and regional health authorities to ensure that they meet the many targets that have been set in the fight against HIV and AIDS. This campaign will run until 2010, with a related theme chosen for World AIDS Day each year.
In Kosciusko County as of June 30, according to AIDS Task Force Inc. Director of Outreach Services Kandace Kelly, there were 31 reported AIDS cases since 1982. Since 1985, there were 16 reported HIV cases.
The AIDS Task Force serves 11 counties in northern Indiana, including Kosciusko County. Kosciusko County is ranked No. 2 out of the 11 for reported cases, Kelly said. Only Allen County has more reported cases. The third is Wabash, and DeKalb County is fourth.
As of June 30, a majority of the cases in Kosciusko County are caucasian. They are male. But those are only the known, reported cases.
Statewide, Marion County - which includes Indianapolis - has the most reported cases, followed by Lake, St. Joseph and then Allen County. Kelly said of the 92 counties in Indiana, all have reported cases of HIV or AIDS.
The numbers, of course, are only reported cases. Kelly said there's a whole other group who don't know they are positive because they have never been tested. They feel healthy and don't have any symptoms of HIV, so they don't get tested.
Young adults are the ones most affected by HIV/AIDS in northern Indiana. With HIV reported cases, a majority of them are between the ages of 20 to 39, then 40 to 49, people over 50 are third, with teenagers coming in last. As of June 30, only 4 percent of reported cases were between 13 to 19 years old. However, that percentage jumps to 34 percent for 20 to 29 year olds.
"That's a huge increase from 13-19 to 20-29," said Kelly. She said if a person is diagnosed at age 22, they likely were infected when they were a teenager.
"A lot of teenagers don't get tested," she said.
In Indiana, parental permission is not required for anyone as young as 13 to get tested for HIV. However, Kelly said most teens do not know that so they don't get tested. Many teens don't know where to go to get tested, or don't have the transportation, so they don't get tested. Only when they are older do they finally get tested and find out they're infected, Kelly said, which helps explain the jump in percentages.
Teens make up the second group for highest new reported cases in the U.S. Women are the first. Persons over the age of 50 are third.
Kelly said statistically, more women tend to get tested. Women are more concerned about their health than men. Men often think it "won't happen to them" because they don't use drugs or aren't gay so they don't get tested.
In Indiana, doctors now have to offer pregnant women an HIV test, and about 98 percent of the women offered the test take it, Kelly said.
It's also easier for a woman to get HIV because if there is an opening, Kelly said the virus will get in the body.
To prevent from getting the disease, Kelly said a person needs to first learn about it. Learn the way a person gets the virus and about the myths surrounding it. Then apply the information the best way that is best for you. While abstinence is 100 percent the safest way of prevention, a person who chooses not to be abstinent has other ways of preventing themselves from contracting the disease.
And get tested. Not only for yourself, Kelly said, but also for your partner. "Getting tested is very important," she said.
Kelly said the Task Force does offer free, anonymous or confidential testing on the first Monday of every month at the Kosciusko County Health Department Clinic, 1000 Medical Park Drive, Suite B, Warsaw, from 1:15 to 3:30 p.m. The testing is on a first-come, first-serve basis. The next testing day is this Monday. Quite a few people do get tested every month at the site, she said. Testing sites also are available in Fort Wayne or South Bend.
No blood is taken for the tests. They are oral tests only. Results take two weeks.
Friday, the AIDS Task Force, along with the Northeast Indiana AIDS Memorial and Fort Wayne/Allen County Health Department is hosting a World AIDS Day event from 6 to 7:15 p.m. at Plymouth Congregational Church, 501 W. Berry St., Fort Wayne. Activities will include performances, guest speakers and refreshments.
According to wikipedia.org, human immunodeficiency virus is a retrovirus that causes Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, a condition in which the immune system begins to fail, leading to life-threatening opportunistic infections. Infection with HIV occurs by the transfer of body fluids. Within these body fluids HIV is present as both free virus particles and virus within infected immune cells. The three major routes of transmission are unprotected sexual intercourse, contaminated needles and transmission from an infected mother to her baby at birth or through breast milk. Screening of blood products for HIV in the developed world has largely eliminated transmission through blood transfusions or infected blood products in these countries.
HIV infection in humans is now pandemic, according to wikipedia.org As of January 2006, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS and the World Health Organization estimate AIDS has killed more than 25 million people since it was first recognized Dec. 1, 1981, making it one of the most destructive pandemics in recorded history. In 2005 alone, AIDS claimed an estimated 2.4-3.3 million lives, of which more than 570,000 were children.
On the Net:
www.aidsfortwayne.org
www.worldaidsday.org
www.avert.org
www.unaids.org
