As we made our way back from our week-long break, the world recognized World AIDS Day on Dec. 1. The AIDS pandemic affects about 34 million people worldwide, and nearly 900,000 in the United States are infected. However, it is still not an issue that many students are aware of or truly understand; that is in part due to the stigma surrounding the disease. Even today, in 2013, these stigmata and myths continue to perpetuate fear and misunderstanding about HIV and AIDS.

AIDS is often seen in the United States as a disease of gay men or intravenous drug users. Although these groups historically have been the worst affected in the U.S., anyone can contract HIV. HIV infection occurs during events such as having unprotected sex, injecting drugs with “dirty” needles, breast-feeding from a HIV-positive mother, or bringing one into direct contact with body fluids such as blood, semen, vaginal fluids or breast milk.

Surprisingly, HIV has low rates of transmission, but even a small risk is still a risk, and preventing yourself from becoming infected is easy. Wearing a condom during sex, only using clean needles, getting tested for HIV and providing anti-retroviral drugs to HIV positive mothers are steps we can take to curb the epidemic.

The best thing you can do is to protect yourself, know your HIV status, and speak up about AIDS. We tiptoe around the topics of sex, of disease and of death. But time and time again have shown that silence and shame only allow the disease to spread, giving it a dark and protected space in which to fester and multiply. HIV thrives on going unnoticed, its strength in part lies in its ability to sleep for years in a person’s body before making its presence known. We need to shine the light on the HIV/AIDS pandemic, illuminating every corner of the globe so that there is no place left for the virus to hide.

There are approximately 2,500 Iowans living with HIV/AIDS, 500 of whom unaware that they are infected. About 100 people are newly diagnosed each year in our state. Despite our ability to prevent HIV transmission, the rate of new infections grows by about three additional people every year, according to the Iowa Department of Public Health.

The HIV/AIDS pandemic is a humanitarian crisis, both at home and abroad. Millions of people are becoming infected, millions have died and continue to die, unable to access life-saving medications. It has continued to happen over the past few decades, missed by many because of its insidious and silent spread. Missed because the people to whom it was happening are those whose voices we rarely listen to.

We need to start listening. HIV is an emerging virus, estimated to have initially infected humans in the early 1900s. It will not be the last infectious threat we face. How we respond to this pandemic will set the tone for future challenges. The truth is, we can end AIDS. We know how to prevent it; we know how to treat it. In fact, we have discovered that treating those infected with HIV very effectively prevents further transmission of the virus. The only barrier left is our own reluctance, fear and silence.

What kind of society will we be if we let millions more die, instead by choosing to pass ignorant and fallacious judgments on the infected? AIDS can infect anyone, and it affects everyone. Will we continue to let the virus mutate and spread, leaving the problem to grow until our children must take care of it?

Today, as we look back on World AIDS Day, let us speak up. Protect yourself. Protect others. We can end AIDS now.