"A lot of students don't feel vulnerable," said Jennifer Harman, a member of the World Aids Day Committee. "Don't believe your partner is uninfected unless they've taken a test. Without a test, there is no knowing. You can't go on assuming."
Harman said that one out of 500 college students carries the virus.
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of AIDS deaths in the U.S. surpassed 566,000 in 2006, and Harman said that more than 2 million die globally from the disease each year.
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment reported in September that in Larimer County, close to 200 hundred people are reported to live with the disease.
Jeff Basinger was diagnosed with HIV in 1985. He has since spent 22 years in the service of AIDS prevention and education, currently as the director of the Northern Colorado AIDS Project.
"I was diagnosed in Austin TX, and a lot of people like me are diagnosed elsewhere," he said. "There could be about 200 people we don't know about."
Basinger said about 25 percent of those who have HIV are unaware they are infected and continue to infect others. He said this is why getting tested is so important: 65 percent of the people who find out they have HIV will stop exposing others to the disease.
