Amy Choi is a Medill senior. She can be reached at [email protected].

There are 214 people living with AIDS in Evanston. In number alone, this gives the city the third-highest AIDS population in the state of Illinois. It ranks second in the state when it comes to AIDS cases per capita.

There’s also “a healthy HIV population” in Evanston, according to Mary Scott, HIV program director of the city’s Health Department and a public health nurse.

The typical ratios of HIV cases to AIDS cases ranges from three to one on the low end up to eight to one depending on the risk factors of the group being analyzed. Intravenous drug users, for example, would tend to have more HIV-infected members of their group per AIDS patient.

If we assume a modest ratio and guess there are five HIV-positive people in Evanston for every one person living with AIDS, that makes 1,070 HIV positive people in Evanston out of a total 73,000. A little more than one in 100.

That means in Bobb-McCulloch alone, it’s safe to say there are about five people of HIV-positive status.

Ever play six degrees of separation?

The very worthwhile student action to emphasize sexual assault awareness is noble. But don’t forget the violence we may unwittingly inflict upon ourselves and others in our carelessness and ignorance. We may be young but we’re not invincible. The numbers will tell you that. If you are the one of 100 that contracts HIV you will eventually develop AIDS and die.

And HIV isn’t the only threat. Gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis, trichomoniasis, NGU (in males), and bacterial vaginosis are all culprits. These STDs range from merely uncomfortable to deadly; untreated syphilis kills a third of its victims. Between 30 and 40 people test positive for these STDs in Evanston every week, a number reported to the Health Department, housed in the Civic Center.

Also at the Civic Center is an STD clinic. You can get confidentially tested for any of these diseases as well as HIV for a fee of $10. It takes about two hours to take the entire battery of tests.

The clinic provides confidential, but not anonymous, testing. That means your name and your medical status will be permanently recorded, available to the state health department and subject to subpoena by insurance companies, who can then refuse to cover certain treatments.

If you’re not at high risk for STDs or HIV, the clinic is an excellent resource. It also provides free male and female condoms and will provide medication for STDs immediately upon detection.

If, on the other hand, you believe you are high risk for HIV, the Health Department recommends and provides free, anonymous HIV testing. If you do test positive, nobody will know but you. This, says program director Scott, can help safeguard against paperwork that may haunt us for the rest of our lives.

Until the stigma of HIV is completely erased, anonymous testing remains a priority for the Health Department.

NU stopped providing anonymous testing in June 2000 when Evanston lost funding to continue the service. Confidential tests are available for $19.70. Until then, the STD clinic offers confidential tests during the walk-in hours of 3 to 4:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Fridays. Appointments for anonymous tests can be made Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

But, asks Scott: “Why won’t students rabble-rouse a little bit to see why the university won’t provide this service?”