March 20 marks the beginning of AIDS Week at the Health Science Center and a group of medical students have organized various activities to help raise HIV/AIDS awareness. “Bearing Witness” is hoped to bring to attention the growing number of deaths due to the AIDS epidemic.
Informational booths and experts from an assortment of institutions will be on campus all week. Events will be held at noon each day in Room 3.104A in the Medical School building.
Caesar Ricci III, M.P.H., medical student, will present “Orphans Living with AIDS and Opportunities for Students” on Wednesday.
“In addition to the hundreds of thousands of children that die every year of AIDS, there are millions who become orphans when their parents die of it,” Ricci said. “This is a wholly unacceptable situation that we should strive ardently to change.”
Ricci’s presentation will be about families struggling against AIDS in the developing world – specifically, the Dominican Republic. It focuses on their experiences and the challenges they face, as well as the opportunities that exist for individuals to help them.
“There are so many opportunities for everyone to get involved with rectifying these inequalities and stopping this needless death and suffering,” Ricci said. “We have a lot of work to do!”
More than 900,000 cases of AIDS have been reported in the United States since 1981. AIDS affects nearly seven times more African Americans and three times more Hispanics than whites, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
To learn more, plan to attend the presentations this week. Lunch will be provided. Other presentations include “Personal Testimonies” on Thursday and “AIDS: A Global Crisis” on Friday.
The week-long event is organized by the Student Infectious Disease Club and sponsored by the Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics, the Health Science Center Alumni Association, the department of student affairs, the American Medical Student Association, the internal medicine interest group and other contributors.
