In an effort to increase student involvement in combating AIDS, Boston University student groups joined together this week to host presentations at the BU Medical Campus to raise awareness on the global pandemic.
“This isn’t just about attending a lecture, it is about attending the lecture and then going out and taking action,” said BU Rotaract Club President Jirair Ratevosian at the sixth annual Student Global AIDS Week of Action, also sponsored by the School of Medicine and School of Public Health.
Rotaract members wrote letters to Congress throughout the week asking lawmakers to adopt policies promoting sexual-risk education and to help provide sterile syringes for drug users in sub-Saharan Africa.
“Our goal is to have 500 postcards sent to Congress urging them to take more action,” he said.
Approximately 8.6 million people in Asia are infected with HIV, and 960,000 were infected in Asia in the past year, according to a World Health Organization report highlighted in the Rotaract letter.
“[Medical students] historically have been silent, but they are the ones who can make the biggest difference in the field,” Ratevosian said. “They are supposed to be the future when it comes to helping.”
Student organizations, including the American Medical Students Association, distributed pamphlets about AIDS outside the events. Other fact sheets included information about malaria and healthcare shortages in Africa.
“We’ve been educating people on different policies and informing them how to contact their representatives on important issues,” said second-year medical student and AMSA member Faye Chan. “Our group has been involved every year.”
A panel yesterday featured SPH professor Dr. Chris Gill and an AIDS patient who discussed interaction between people living with AIDS and those treating the disease.
Approximately 50 students gathered in SMED on Wednesday to watch Pills, Profit, Protest: Chronicle of the Global AIDS Movement, a documentary about major drug manufacturers’ monopolies on essential AIDS treatments and how smaller grassroots organizations have a positive influence in Africa, Brazil and the United States.
“I visited Kenya and saw orphan children whose parents had died of AIDS, but this shows that it is possible to give affordable treatment in the third world,” said second-year medical student Ebonie Woolcock. “I was completely unaware that Brazil has universal healthcare for its people infected with AIDS.”
Tuesday’s event involved a lunchtime presentation from Dr. Meg Sullivan about reproductive services available to HIV-infected couples. Another lunchtime presentation Monday discussed microbicides, which are designed to prevent HIV transmission when applied topically, but any not currently available to the public.
Global AIDS Week of Action comes to a close today at 1 p.m. Students and staff plan on forming a human AIDS ribbon on the Talbot Green Grass Courtyard at BUMC this afternoon, symbolically showing their solidarity in the fight against AIDS.