Are you protected?

Mayra Bocanegra / Roundup

As part of Pierce College’s HIV/AIDS Awareness week, the Student Health Center and Bienestar are providing free and confidential HIV/AIDS testing in front of the Student Services building until March 24 from 2 to 7 p.m. The testing was conducted by Bienestar, a mobilized testing clinic funded by the U.S Center for Disease Control and Prevention as well as the County of Los Angeles Department of Public Health.

Students waited patiently outside the mobile, where counselors filled a table with HIV/AIDS pamphlets, condoms, lubricates and business cards.

Signing up was easy, waiting for results proved to be the tough part.

“The most nerve racking part is getting the results,” said Nursing major, Rene Lexus. “But this is so convenient, it only takes 20 minutes”.

Lexus heard about the testing through last weeks HIV positive speakers from the “Being Alive” organization where speakers spoke about their life with the disease.

Henry Walk, a Marketing major, also became aware of the event through a guest speaker in his health 2 class with professor Diane Kelly.

According to Margaret Babb, a phlebotomy technician and HIV counselor for Bienestar, the test are 99.9 percent accurate, and you have two options of testing: a saliva swap or blood test.

“HIV doesn’t favor any age that you are or whether you are male or female,” said Babb. “That is why it is important to get tested”.

Bienestar provides a variety of services to those who are infected by the disease such as housing, support groups, treatment and counseling.

“Once we know the client tested positive we do a confirmation test,” said Babb. “We send that to the lab for three days and they send us back their findings and confirm our readings”.

With more than one million people living with HIV in the USA, it is important to get tested, according to counselors.

“A lot of it depends on sexual appetite,” said Babb. “Once a year if you have one sexual partner, every six months if you have five to seven partners and every three months if you have a very active sexual life”.