USG Sponsors Free HIV Testing
The Undergraduate Student Government will contribute $7,500 to the Student Wellness Center (SWC) this academic school year to help provide free HIV testing for students. Although USG has funded testing in the past, this is the largest contribution to date, due to an increase in the demand for testing and a new, more expensive testing protocol that offers faster results.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, one in 250 college students are HIV positive, but 90% are unaware of their status. Therefore, USG and the SWC agree that testing is crucial to reducing the future transmission of the virus. By collaborating, USG and SWC have been able to provide a service that allows students to schedule appointments for free testing and have access to monthly walk-ins.
Last year, USG supported this service in the amount of $5,500. This funded the free monthly walk-in testing as well as advertising. The walk-in outreaches are set up in various residence halls, academic buildings, and service buildings such as the Hale Center.
SWC has offered HIV antibody testing for the past ten years. For the first time last year, a new form of testing known as ADVANCE was officially implemented. ADVANCE offers results quicker than ever before and is a non-invasive procedure: results now take less than an hour instead of a full week and testing is done via an oral specimen instead of by drawing blood.
Since the implementation of ADVANCE, the total number of clients tested has increased as well as the number of clients that received their results. The chart developed by SWC below provides a more comprehensive overview:
|
Year |
Number of total clients tested (through April of each year) |
Number of clients who did not receive their results |
|
04-05 |
561 |
154 (35%) |
|
05-06 |
391 |
40 (11%) |
|
06-07 |
605 |
1 (.2%) |
|
07-08 |
724 |
1 (.1%) |
The expense of this new form of testing is triple the amount of the prior form. An ADVANCE test costs approximately $20 per student. This means that more than $14,000 has been spent so far in the past fiscal year. Therefore, to ensure that students would not lose this free service, USG increased funding by $2,000 this year.