FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Although AIDS is a deadly, wid

(New Rochelle High School)

Although AIDS is a deadly, widespread disease, I have come to realize that knowledge on the subject is not widespread, and that many remain ignorant of it. By simply reflecting on my own personal experiences in my home town, New Rochelle, NY, I became aware that I cannot specifically recall where and when I last saw a billboard of any form promoting AIDS awareness, or even the first time I learned about AIDS.

 Even though the Health curriculum in my school, New Rochelle High School, touches on the subject of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, we only learn the basic understanding of it. In other words, we learn the basic facts, such as AIDS is a sexually transmitted disease and the reason why people die from it is because the virus attacks the immune system. All of this is covered in a single day and then incorporated into roughly 5 multiple choice questions of a test. Whether or not the students in Health Class stayed awake to learn this bit of information was also a factor when learning about AIDS. This course is obligatory for all High School Students in order to graduate and is available for students to take in either their senior or junior year of High School.  Taking Health my senior year, made me aware of what AIDS was, but I was still unaware of the complete impact of the AIDS epidemic.

Although I learned about AIDS in Health class it was definitely not the first time I had heard of it. About three years ago, I found out that one of my uncles was diagnosed with AIDS. Since he lives in Peru I have rarely seen him. I have also rarely heard my family talk about him and when they have spoken of him, it was in hushed tones. As far as I know my uncle is not the type of man that fits under the homosexual with AIDS category. What I do know is that he is currently serving time in jail. Since one can have HIV for a very long time without showing signs of AIDS my family members decided to test my littlest cousin for HIV, who at the time was not even a year old. Fortunately he did not have HIV and to this day is doing very well. The fact that I did not know my uncle well but did know that he had AIDS made me aware of the issue, but did not really hit home because my uncle is not a prevalent figure in my life but rather simply a person I am related to. Therefore, this made me aware of AIDS but didn’t make it an important issue that made me think of it anymore than everyday things one would ponder about on a bus ride.

On the first day of CORE AIDS class I was asked to estimate how many people had been diagnosed with AIDS in my community Westchester County. My guess was more than twice as much than the actual amount of people with AIDS.  My estimate was that 8,362 people had AIDS in Westchester County whereas in reality the number of cumulative AIDS cases turned out to be 3,797. Through research I found that the cumulative AIDS rate in Westchester County ranged from 35 people with AIDS per 100,000 people in Chester to 1688 people with AIDS per 100,000 people in Mount Vernon.