One in every 500 college students may be infected with HIV according to the Department of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control, which means approximately 50 SIUC students may have HIV.

Because of increasing worldwide numbers such as these, the World Health Organization is sponsoring the 8th annual World AIDS Day, a SIUC Wellness Center spokesperson says.

The theme for the 1995 World AIDS Day is Shared Rights, Shared Responsibilities, to stress the rights and responsibilities of those with and without HIV, a Jackson County Health Department spokesperson said.

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Project Director Sandra Ceto from the Southern Illinois HIV CARE Consortium said, The goal is to emphasize the rights everyone has to avoid HIV infection, receive health care if infected and be given respect and personal freedom.

In Jackson County, 25 people have HIV and 25 more have AIDS, Desiree Mills said. Mills is the sexuality education coordinator for the SIUC Wellness Center.

HIV is the virus that causes AIDS, a disease which weakens the immune system. The HIV virus may develop into AIDS. A person with HIV can appear to be healthy.

Mills said there are SIUC students who had HIV but was unsure of the numbers.

We never know how many, Mills said. I might see one infected student per semester. They just won’t come in because of the stigma.

The Southern Illinois HIV CARE Consortium provides case management for people infected with AIDS. Ceto said the consortium has 60 clients. The clients range from African American, international, Caucasian, men, women, children, homosexual, heterosexual, married, single, healthy and working and very ill.

Everyone is so unique, Ceto said.

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An estimated 20 million men, women and children worldwide have been infected by the HIV virus as of June 1995 according to the World Health Organization. The number of those that have developed AIDS is 4.5 million.

As of December 1994 in the United States, 441,528 people have been diagnosed with the AIDS virus. Of that number, 270,870 have died.

Erika Cohoutec, of Gays, Bisexuals, Lesbians and Friends whose stepmother has HIV, said she wants people to acknowledge there are people living with HIV.

It doesn’t matter how people get it, they have, it, she said. It’s a very personal thing. They (people) don’t think about HIV until it happens to them. This is my way of dealing with it. By educating people to think about their actions before they become part of a statistic.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that among 25 to 44-year-old people, HIV is the leading cause of death.