Leslie Hitchcock, News Editor

As part of a senior project for the social work department, several students are promoting a week of AIDS Awareness.

Together with the Mountain AIDS Support Council (MASC) and the Watauga County Health Depatment, the students are sponsoring a mass screening for HIV, said senior Hannah Alligood.

“The testing is the culmination of the entire week (of AIDS Awareness),” Alligood said. It will be open from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Friday.

The results will be sent to the Watauga County Health Department for testing, which means that it is done separately from the university.

To present additional information, there will be a booth in the Plemmons Student Union outside the entrance to Cascades.

Alligood said that the booth will have handouts with AIDS information, condoms and a video on the AIDS quilt that MASC sponsors.

Additionally, Alligood hopes that the group will be able to address campus organizations on the importance of AIDS Awareness and HIV testing.

There will be signs hanging in the infirmary to direct people to the screening, Alligood said.
 

Did you know...

•30.6 million people are infected with AIDS worldwide

•641,086 Americans have been reported with AIDS

•Young people under the age of 25 represent half of all new AIDS cases in the United States

•AIDS was the second leading cause of death among Americans ages 25 to 44 in 1996

•Also in 1996, AIDS was the eighth leading cause of death overall (CDC, 9/11/97)

•The Center for Disease Control stated in July, 1997 that heterosexual AIDS cases had grown 15-20 percent per year