Published: October 22, 2008 10:33 pm      

AIDS task force steps up education

DANVILLE — A handful of people in Vermilion County continue to fight a worldwide problem.

Members of the Vermilion County AIDS Task Force presented Wednesday an information distribution event at Danville Area Community College’s Student Union. Mayor Scott Eisenhauer read a proclamation recognizing the event as part of the task force’s ongoing efforts to educate the community about HIV/AIDS.

To the disappointment of organizers, very few students listened to either the group members or the mayor.

Terry Lake, task force chairman, said this is a situation his group has encountered before.

“People don’t care if they’re not affected or they think they’re not,” Lake said.

Stephenie Koester, Champaign-Urbana Public Health District case manager who oversees Vermilion County’s HIV/AIDS cases observed, “This age group thinks it won’t happen to them. They don’t realize it’s not who you are, but what you do that puts you at risk.

“Schools focus on abstinence,” Koester said. “Parents don’t talk to their kids like they should.

“It’s different in Champaign-Urbana,” she said. “There’s a very different attitude in the larger cities than in smaller, rural communities.”

Two DACC students, Tiffani Sanders from Ridge Farm and Bismarck’s Sabrina Park, glanced at the pamphlets about the fatal disease. AIDS task force members placed the literature on the union tables before the lunch rush began.

Both freshmen women said they’d first learned about AIDS in high school health classes.

“We learned about the risks of getting it,” Sanders said,

“You know it’s here,” Park said as she glanced at a pamphlet, “but you don’t hear about it. You hear more about it in Africa.”

Quoting statistics from the Illinois Department of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control, Koester said 66 people in Vermilion County are living with HIV and 63 active cases of AIDS have been reported in the county this year. She said that Illinois ranks around seventh in the nation, depending on the statistics being used, for number of cases of HIV/AIDS in the country.

This is not just an African problem, but Lake observed that the African-American community is more responsive to information about the disease than others.

“We’ll go anywhere, talk about this issue any time, if someone invites us,” he said. “Certain groups respond really well. They’re thirsty for knowledge (about HIV/AIDS). It’s better to target groups like that.”

In his proclamation that he read Wednesday, Eisenhauer reminded the few listeners that Dec. 1 will be the 20th anniversary of World AIDS Day. Task force members will lead a candlelight march that evening as they have for years.

“Be a leader,” Eisenhauer said to the three students who stayed and listened to his entire proclamation.