Wednesday is World AIDS Day, an event promoting awareness of the growing global epidemic affecting millions of people.

The day is important because it helps make AIDS visible, not only globally and nationally, but also locally, said Pam Carnine, HIV/STD educator for Youth and Shelter Services, Inc.

“We have to continually remind ourselves that this is real and it’s killing people, and we have the power to stop this,” she said.

The epidemic continues to spread, with 4.8 million new cases reported worldwide last year, according to the Web site of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

World AIDS Day forces the media to deal with AIDS globally and domestically, said Gwenn Barringer, a former case manager for AIDS Services Group. Barringer will speak Wednesday night at the Memorial Union.

World AIDS Day also offers more opportunities for people like Barringer and her husband, Shawn Decker, who has HIV, to share their message, Barringer said.

Decker said the day also gives a sense of community to those living with HIV/AIDS and those trying to educate people about the disease.

“I am reminded quite vividly that I am not alone,” he said.

Each year, a different theme is chosen for World AIDS Day. Wednesday will focus on women and children because the AIDS epidemic affects women around the world, Carnine said. The receptive partner in a sexual encounter — the woman, in most cases — is biologically more at risk to contract the disease, she said.

“This is a women’s issue globally,” Carnine said. “In a lot of cultures, women don’t have a lot of sexual choices. Women and children are becoming increasingly at risk.”

AIDS can no longer be seen as a disease reaching only gay men, drug addicts and Africans. HIV doesn’t discriminate — it infects men and women of all ages in every country, placing everyone at risk, Carnine said. As of the end of 2003, an estimated 37.8 million people worldwide were living with HIV/AIDS, according to the NIAID Web site.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate 850,000 to 950,000 U.S. residents live with HIV.

Many Midwesterners don’t face the reality of the AIDS epidemic, said Janelle Durlin, HIV/AIDS case manager for Mid-Iowa Community Action’s Living with HIV Program. They put it off as an East or West Coast problem, she said.

“I don’t think our community has any idea how serious this disease is,” she said. “It’s right here and growing.”

According to the third-quarter report of Iowa Department of Public Health’s HIV/AIDS Surveillance Group, which was released on Sept. 30, there are 469 reported cases of people living with HIV and 738 reported cases of AIDS statewide. Story County reported 29 people living with HIV/AIDS.

The disease is a larger problem than most people realize because symptoms aren’t detectable right away, Durlin said.

Someone can live with HIV for up to 10 years without realizing he or she has the virus, but, eventually, he or she becomes sick and ends up in the hospital.

Many people discover they have HIV by landing in the hospital, Durlin said.

One-third of people infected with HIV/AIDS live unaware they carry a virus that will eventually debilitate their immune systems, Carnine said.

She said some sexually active young people aren’t getting tested like they should and aren’t taking the proper precautions to protect themselves against HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

College students in particular seem to think they are invincible and that HIV/AIDS can’t touch them or their friends, Carnine said. In 2003, 6,000 of the world’s 15- to 24-year-olds became infected with HIV each day, according to the NIAID Web site. About 40,000 Americans — half of whom are younger than 25 years old — become infected with HIV annually in the United States.

In Iowa, the spread of AIDS will be facilitated by the lack of awareness and personal responsibility for health, Carnine said.

“Once the virus lands in any numbers, it’s going to spread quickly,” she said. “I don’t think we’ve even begun to see the epidemic in Iowa yet.”

Three activities are planned for World AIDS Day on campus Wednesday:

• The Student Health Advisory Council will sponsor an HIV/AIDS information booth along with Free Condom Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Union Drive Community Center.

• Youth and Shelter Services, Inc. and other local organizations are sponsoring Day Without Art. Various public works of art in Ames and on campus will be shrouded in black plastic.

• Shawn Decker and Gwenn Barringer will share their story of life with HIV in “A Boy, a Girl, a Virus and the Relationship that Happened Anyway” at 7 p.m. in the Sun Room of the Memorial Union. The married couple will share their strategies of having a relationship while one partner deals with HIV/AIDS. The two will also discuss strategies for safe sex.

— Compiled by Heather Behrens

Facts abut HIV

• A person can contract HIV when blood, semen, pre-seminal fluid, vaginal fluid or breast milk from an infected person enters the body of an uninfected person.

• The virus is most commonly transmitted through sex (anal, vaginal or oral); through sharing needles or injection equipment and through birth or breast feeding, when AIDS passes from an infected mother to her baby.

• HIV primarily infects certain white blood cells that manage the immune system.

• The virus eventually disables the immune system. Once the immune system is weakened, the body is susceptible to other diseases that can be life threatening.

• Once counts of CD4 and T-lymphocyte cells drop below 200, the person has progressed to AIDS — Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

• A person will eventually die from complications of opportunistic diseases like cancer, dementia or progressive weight loss.

Sources: The American College Health Association and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

— Compiled by Heather Behrens