ARC offers free, confidential HIV testing throughout Rome and Floyd County
Videography by Sanna Andersson
The AIDS Resource Council offers free HIV testing throughout the year both at Berry College and Shorter College. An HIV test can be done rather easily, and in only minutes, and the tests require only cells from your mouth – no blood! This short video presentation shows you how. (Unable to see the video? Download a free Flash
Player plug-in.)
photo slideshow by Josh Huggins
The AIDS Resource Council of Rome also offers free, confidential HIV testing at its office Monday through Thursday, as well as at many events in the community throughout the year. This photo presentation covers some of the reasons why it is so important to get tested, and it takes you to testing sessions at Berry College and at the Latino Health Fair of 2009.
photo slideshow by Minyoung Kim and Noelle Brooks
In this photo presentation, students and ARC volunteer Frank Tant talk about and demonstrate how easy it is to get an HIV test. The free, confidential testing session took place at Berry College in February 2009.
Your donations: the lifeblood of ARC
The AIDS Resource Council would not exist without the generous financial support of individuals. Support from individual donors allows us to continue our programs and services.
Your financial support makes a tremendous difference.
You may contribute to the AIDS Resource Council, Inc. in a variety of ways: by cash or check, even by donating appreciated stock or other real property.
Donations made to AIDS Resource Council may be given for use in unrestricted areas or may be designed for particular purposes, such as education or direct client services. The AIDS Resource Council is a 501(c)(3) Tax Exempt Organization.
HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus. HIV is a virus. Some viruses, such as the ones that cause the common cold or the flu, stay in the body for only a few days. Other viruses, such as the HIV virus, never goes away. When a person becomes infected with the HIV virus, that person becomes "HIV positive" and will always be HIV positive.
Over time, the HIV virus invades and kills white blood cells. These white blood cells are commonly called "T cells". The lack of a sufficient number of white blood cells may leave the body unable to fight off certain kinds of infections and cancers.
What is AIDS?
AIDS stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome and is caused by the HIV virus. The terms HIV and AIDS can be confusing because both terms describe the same disease. Think of AIDS as advanced HIV disease.
A person with AIDS has an immune system so weakened by HIV disease that the person usually becomes sick from one of several opportunistic infections or cancers such as PCP (a type of pneumonia) or KS (Kaposi's sarcoma), wasting syndrome (involuntary weight loss), memory impairment, or tuberculosis to name a few. If someone with HIV disease is diagnosed with one of many opportunistic infections or if the "T cell" count is below 200, he/she is said to have AIDS. Once a person contracts the HIV virus it usually takes 2 to 10 years or possibly more to develop into AIDS. Once a person has been diagnosed with AIDS she/he is always considered to have AIDS, even if the person's "T-cell" count goes up again and/or they recover from the opportunistic disease that defined their AIDS diagnosis.
What are the symptoms of HIV infection?
The first symptoms of HIV infection can resemble the same symptoms as the common cold or flu. Some people get fever, headache, sore muscles and joints, stomach ache, swollen lymph glands, or a skin rash for one or two weeks. Other people have no symptoms.
Because of the nonspecific symptoms associated with primary or acute HIV infection, symptoms are not an entirely reliable way to diagnose HIV infection. Testing for HIV antibodies is the only way to definitively determine whether you have been infected with the HIV virus. However, the HIV antibody test only works if the infected person's immune system has developed antibodies to HIV. During the "window period" (the period of time between the initial HIV exposure and the time the body produces HIV antibodies - 2 weeks to 6 months, but usually 3 months), standard HIV antibody testing is ineffective.
How can I tell if someone has HIV?
There is no way to know for sure if someone has HIV. Many people with HIV look perfectly healthy. Other people who are sick with HIV may have symptoms that are identical to other common illnesses. You cannot tell by looking whether someone is HIV positive.
How do you get and avoid getting HIV?
HIV is a virus that infects people by getting inside their blood cells. To avoid getting HIV, you must prevent the blood, semen, vaginal fluids, or breast milk of someone who is infected from entering your body through your mouth, vagina, anus, tip of your penis, or breaks in your skin. The body fluids containing HIV include blood (including menstrual blood), semen and possibly pre-seminal fluid ("pre-cum"),
vaginal secretions, and breast milk.
How is HIV transmitted?
HIV is transmitted when HIV infected blood, semen, vaginal fluids, or breast milk enter another person's body. This most often occurs during unprotected sex, during IV drug use (when needles or other drug paraphernalia are shared. Anyone who is infected with HIV can transmit it to another person. They may not appear sick. They may not yet have AIDS. They may be taking effective treatment for their infection. Infected women who become pregnant may transmit the HIV virus to their newborns and are much more likely to do so if they are not treated effectively.
ARC food bags delivered
to area clients on weekly basis
ARC volunteer Frank Tant helps
client families
stay healthy, offers friendship and a listening ear
By Briona Arradondo
Every week Reginald Austin looks forward to his visits with Frank Tant. Upon hearing the doorbell, he opens the door and his dog, Jazz, immediately greets the good Samaritan by leaping in excitement.
Austin receives his groceries for the week, groceries he depends on for good nutrition, in addition to the friendly company. Tant shows genuine concern for his clients, asking Austin about his health and whether he will attend the week’s support group.
Volunteer Frank Tant, left, delivers a food bag to Guillermo Bicente, brother-in-law of ARC client Elvia Bicente.
AIDS Resource Council volunteer Frank Tant delivers food pantry bags to people with AIDS in Rome on a weekly basis, providing non-perishable items and canned goods to those who don’t have a means of transportation. For the past six years, Tant has delivered one food bag per family to six clients in Rome and Cedartown who qualify for the service.
“Somebody needed to do it and I had the time,” said Tant, explaining why he got involved. He says he listens to Ella Fitzgerald and other jazz artists on his rounds making deliveries.
Atlanta-Rome connection
ARC of Rome gets the food for delivery through Open Hand in Atlanta, an organization that since 1988 has offered a food pantry and hot meals to AIDS sufferers who cannot cook for themselves. Some bags from the food pantry include cereals, organic foods, dried items and other health foods.
The AIDS Alliance of Northwest Georgia in Cartersville, a non-profit organization committed to promoting AIDS awareness in the Northwest Georgia area, contacted ARC to see if people in the Rome area qualified for the service, and soon after the service program was established in and for Rome.
The food deliveries are only applicable to individuals of low-income, said Tant.
Clients are required to provide proof of income and proof of HIV status, according to Tant, who has volunteered with ARC since September 2003.
“It’s not enough to be HIV positive. Your T-cells have to be a certain level,” he said.
How to qualify
To qualify for the service, a client’s T-cell level typically has to be well below 500. Cell counts of 500 and above are considered healthy.
Client Reginald Austin, 49, said the deliveries have been a tremendous help. And James Waldrop, 60, who has been getting food deliveries for four years, said the food provided him an opportunity to cook for himself.
Open Hand typically provides generic products to keep costs down, so clients rarely receive brand name goods, such as Del Monte or Green Giant. Waldrop said that the food is pretty good, and he eats well, but, because he mostly receives canned goods and packaged foods, it’s nice to sometimes get good organic and fresh foods.
“Once in a while, I get fabulous food,” said Waldrop, who started an AIDS support group at Northwest Regional Hospital in 1984. “One time, I got organic artichoke hearts and Hearts of Palm.”
More than just an errand
Aside from receiving nutritional food, the clients benefit from Tant’s friendship, even if it is only once a week.
Waldrop, who moved to Rome from California, said that he and Tant watch many of the same television shows and discuss them. Tant also helps him with transportation because Waldrop does not have a valid driver’s license, which he said would change as soon as he finishes rehabilitation of his hand, which was debilitated in a stroke in 2004.
Tant “sometimes takes me to the dollar store when it’s too cold,” Waldrop said. “And when there’s an ARC function, Frank comes to pick me up.”
Austin said he participates in the ARC programs and attends a support group to help him cope with HIV. With his family in New Jersey and in Atlanta, Austin said he receives few visits from his relatives.
“My mother is the only one who helps me out,” said Austin, who is unemployed. “She sends me change every month.”
For Tant’s part, he said he doesn’t see himself as anything more than someone willing to lend an ear and an open heart.
“I don’t know any of them any better than anybody else,” he said. “If they need to talk, then I will sit down and listen. As a peer counselor, if somebody needs to talk, that’s what I’m there for.” Tant said donations are appreciated.
To help continue the food deliveries and support ARC, people are encouraged to donate to Project Open Hand in Atlanta. For more information, contact the ARC office at 706.290.9098, or visit the Project Open Hand Web site.
It is important to realize that many people with HIV infection do not look sick.
Most people with HIV infection have not been tested and don't know they are infected.
HIV is not transmitted by casual contact.
The HIV virus dies quickly outside the body and is easily killed by soap or common disinfectants such as bleach.
There is no risk of HIV infection from:
donating blood
mosquito bites
toilet seats
shaking hands
hugging
sharing eating utensils
food or objects handled by people with HIV or AIDS
spending time in the same house, business, or public place with
a person with HIV/AIDS
Is there a cure for AIDS?
There is no cure for AIDS. There are drugs that can slow down the HIV virus, and slow
down the damage to your immune system, but there is no way to get all the HIV out of
your body.
There are drugs that prevent or treat opportunistic infections. In most cases, these drugs
work very well. The newer, stronger, anti-HIV drugs have also helped reduce the rates of
most opportunistic infections.
Created
for ARC of Rome by the Department of Communication, Berry College
