One-hundred-seventy-one UT students were tested for gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis and HIV by the Safe and Sexy Spartans (S.A.S.S.) Club on April 2. Although this is the largest number of students to be tested by UT in three semesters, this group is less than 2.5 percent of UT’s current undergrad population.
The testing was completely free and took about less than 30 minutes. Students were even rewarded with a $5 McDonald’s gift card as incentive for being tested. Despite the incentive and risk-free opportunity, a current UT student, who wished to remain anonymous, gave his own reasons for not being tested.
“I believe that one can somewhat tell what is and isn’t going on in their own body,” the student said. “So at the moment, I believe I do not need to be tested.”
According to the student, “There are common signs that every person can sense and everyone can tell when there is something different going on in their own body.” He is under the assumption that most people who are infected with sexually transmitted diseases do not have physical symptoms.
He is wrong, according to the Florida Health Department. Medical research has proven that people are not capable of simply “sensing” if they have STIs unless they start showing physical symptoms of the infection. Furthermore, the chances of contracting an STI and/or HIV in Hillsborough County are extremely high.
As of January 2014, there has been a 64 percent increase in reported cases of infectious syphilis in Hillsborough County and a 167 percent increase in reported cases of early latent syphilis since last year. As of 2013, Hillsborough County ranked number five in the state of Florida for cases of Gonorrhea, number four for HIV (which is a 218 percent increase), number four for Chlamydia and number seven for AIDS (a 140 percent increase), according to the Florida Health Department. Although Hillsborough County is an exceptionally large area, the chances of contracting an STI for UT students is still extremely high. According to Carlos A. Mercado, the STD Area 6 program manager at Hillsborough County Health Department, “Many adolescents and young adults (15 to 24 years old) are one of the most impacted segments of our population affected by STIs.” In the U.S., there are approximately 20 million new STI cases reported every year, and half of them are among this age group.
In regards to students who choose not to get tested, Mercado said, “It is important to know that anyone with an untreated STI infection is two to five times more likely to be infected with HIV than those that are not infected.
“The only sure way to know that someone with whom you are having an intimate sexual relationship is not infected is by testing; you cannot tell by just looking at someone or by what they say,” Mercado said.
Mercado added that most bacterial STIs can be treated and cured. “This is not the case with viral infections such as HIV,” he said. “However, even in this case, someone diagnosed with HIV has access to a world-class [sexual health] system right here in Hillsborough.”
Another common reason that students do not get tested is that they believe that being “virgins” excludes them from being at risk for STIs and HIV. Mercado said this is absolutely false.
“Individuals have many sexual and other practices that may put them at risk besides not having vaginal sexual intercourse,” Mercado said. “Anal, oral and digital (use of fingers) sex, and sharing ‘dirty’ needles between intravenous drug users are just as capable of passing some STIs from an infected individual to another.”
For students who want to be healthy and STI free, Mercado recommends always using condoms and oral sex barriers for every sexual encounter, getting tested frequently and after every new partner and refraining from having multiple sex partners, having sex with anonymous partners or having sex while under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
Delisa Allen, a UT junior and the president of the S.A.S.S. Club, had some advice of her own to offer students after the testing event.
“People need to have more open communication lines with their partners,” Allen said. “You can do everything that you need to do, like wearing condoms and taking all the preventative measures, but if you don’t know what your partner is doing then you’re still putting yourself at risk.”
Allen also wants students to stay informed. The UT Wellness Center offers a large variety of pamphlets and information on sexual health, but some great information can also be found on the Internet. Bedsider.org offers many external sources and information on STIs, and Allen said that as long as sources are reliable, there’s nothing wrong with researching STIs from the comfort of your own room.
Allen mentioned that S.A.S.S.’s next testing event will be in October and will strive for an even larger number of students to be tested.
“A lot of kids feel like if they go the previous semester, they don’t need to get tested the next semester,” Allen said. “Even if they had just gotten tested and had sex before, it won’t show up until the following semester. So people should get tested every semester. I think that’s our goal for the next testing: figure out how to market to those people.”
If you suspect that you may have an STI and have not recently been tested, it is not too late. Students reporting STI symptoms are able to get tested for free at the health center on campus. Many different organizations in the Hillsborough County area offer free testing as well, so students who don’t have symptoms can still get checked.
Allen recommends that students who have recently changed sex partners get tested at least three months after the change. “After three months, any sexually transmitted infections or diseases are considered testable,” Allen said. “That’s typically when any type of STI will surface.”