Health News
2005-10-01
West Virginia
colleges offer students oral HIV tests
Earlier this
month, West Virginia University became the latest higher
education institution in the state to offer an oral-swa
Earlier this
month, West Virginia University became the latest higher
education institution in the state to offer an oral-swab HIV
antibody test to students. "What prompted it was a
long-standing desire to have more HIV prevention,
counseling, education, and testing," says WVU's
director of Student Health Services Jan Palmer.
West
Virginia’s Fairmont State University and Glenville
State College already offer oral HIV antibody testing
though student health services, and Marshall
University offers it through the Cabell-Huntington health
department.
Glenville State
spokeswoman Allison Minton says providing HIV antibody
testing on the campus helps students. "I think it's
important that if a student has a concern that they
have a disease that they have access to the health
care that can give them answers," she says.
Counseling is
also offered as part of HIV antibody testing, including
discussions about abstinence, alcohol's potential role in
risky behavior, and the importance of condom use. "We
want to help them change behaviors that continue to
put people at risk," explains Yolanda Kirchartz,
director of student health services at Fairmont State.
"Too often college students feel a false sense of security
because they are young and appear to be healthy. They
think, It can't happen to me," adds Palmer.
In the first six
months of 2005, 65 new HIV cases were reported in West
Virginia, state health officials said, compared to the 139
cases for all of 2004 and 158 cases in 2003. (AP)
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