As
students arrive on campus their freshman year they are not only faced with a new
experience but also with a harsh reality. HIV/AIDS is an increasingly
overlooked sexually transmitted disease because of its subtle symptoms and people
not reaching awareness where needed. Sexually transmitted diseases are
prevalent and common in college, especially in the south, but it is not talked
about as much as a problem as it was in high school even as it becomes more of a problem.
“I
believe HIV is less talked about because it is not thought of as a death
sentence anymore,” said Takilya Davis of the University Student Health Center.
“Individual's are not as afraid of
the virus so they continue to participate in high risk behaviors,” said Davis.
Ole Miss is not taking the steps
necessary to get the word out for people to get tested and also ways to prevent
it. People who rank HIV as a major health problem have declined drastically
over the past decade, and Ole Miss seems to be going along with this statistic,
as there are not any support groups on campus or awareness programs that
specifically cater to people going through prevention of HIV/AIDS. Understanding
of this deadly disease is taken lightly when it should outshine other problems
that are consistently brought up on campus like alcohol abuse.
“I have not heard about any kind of
HIV/AIDS awareness or prevention since high school,” said Meaghan Dice a
sophomore at Ole Miss.
People infected with the disease may
not be aware of it until many years later when prevention of HIV developing
into AIDS could have stopped future infection.
College students do continue to
participate in such risky behaviors as Mississippi continues to be the state
with the 7th highest rate for HIV infections. Students are
complacent about the situation and are becoming less aware of what a major
issue it is in the United States because it is not only a disease in Africa and
other countries. More than 1 million people in American are now living
with HIV.
Population at the
greatest risk for the disease is the south because of inability of access to
prevention programs and poverty. Ole
Miss students are from many different states, but the majority of students
reside in the south. This affects the
Ole Miss student body because people infected with HIV might not even know it,
so ways to prevent it and getting tested
would be helpful.
“Southern states suffer from a host of health issues, including HIV, for
reasons that extend from poverty to a lack of education and fragile families,”
said Harold Henderson, an HIV expert at the University of Mississippi, in a
2011 USA Today article.
“Many children in the South lack
sufficient sex education,” Henderson added.
There are many new prevention practices in the United States that are
not fully put into practice as much as they are meant to be. With a stronger
response to the HIV epidemic, significant reductions in the infection are
possible. When prevention is possible continuing to be complacent can cost us
our own lives or even the lives of our close friends.
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