An initiative set up to offer students free, anonymous and confidential HIV testing is being organized at Binghamton University for this Wednesday, with support from the AIDS Institute and local AIDS awareness groups.
The testing is being coordinated by AIDS Prevention, Awareness and Care, a student group devoted to promoting understanding of the epidemic.
Wednesday’s tests will be preliminary and results will be ready in 20 minutes.
‘They prick your finger and take a drop of blood, and they put the blood on a slip that reacts to HIV antibodies,’ said Adam Kahan, the president of APAC. ‘In the event the reactions are positive, they’ll take a real blood test and they’ll send it to a lab for a confirmatory test.’
A positive reactive test, Kahan stressed, does not necessarily mean that a person is positive for HIV.
The procedures will be conducted by testers from the Broome County Health Department and the Southern Tier AIDS Program, who offer both anonymous and confidential testing. Anonymous testing provides the person with an identification number and no personal information is used to track their results. The results are confidential, so only the New York Health Department knows who has been tested.
‘Nobody in APAC and nobody in the school is allowed to know who’s positive, who’s negative and who got tested,’ Kahan said. ‘If somebody is positive or negative, it’s none of our business.’
Testing will be available from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in room 324 of the New University Union, where participants will pick up a number and wait to be seen in a private room.
‘Certainly we’re not going to make any comments as to who’s there, who’s not,’ Kahan said. ‘It’s a personal choice.’
Once there, Kahan said, nobody is obligated to be tested ‘ and cases of ‘cold feet’ in the room are not uncommon, though testers at the site are trained to provide both counseling before and after the evaluation.
APAC, a newly formed group at Binghamton University, was created by students who had a background in raising AIDS awareness and are supported by the Southern Tier AIDS Program. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, New York state had both the highest number of new AIDS cases in 2005 and the most cumulative cases before that year.
Wednesday’s procedures are being paid for by the AIDS Institute, which promotes AIDS research and education.