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.