Windy City Breezes in With HIV Testing and Awareness

With National HIV Testing Day approaching, Chicago health care providers and LGBT groups have teamed up to host HIV testing events, discussions and a screening of the birth of AIDS activism. All events will be free.

On June 6, The Center on Halsted will team up with both the Chicago and Illinois Departments of Public Health and ViiV Healthcare to host an evening of events at the Center, at 3656 Halsted Street.

The evening will begin at 5 p.m. with a keynote seminar about HIV testing from Dr. Robert Dodge, clinical associate professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. A free dinner will follow the speech.

At 7 p.m. that night, guests are invited to stay for a free screening of the Academy Award nominated film, "How to Survive a Plague," a documentary about the early years of the AIDS crisis in New York.

The emergence of the activist group ACT UP in Greenwich Village, New York, signaled the beginning of the AIDS activist movement in the U.S. These activists, many of them HIV-positive and unwilling to die without a fight, raised awareness of the epidemic via dramatic protests.

They became recognized experts in virology, biology and pharmaceutical chemistry, and their advocacy would lead them to force the conversation about AIDS into the 1992 Presidential election, and push for the drug that would allow people with HIV to live long lives.

For more information, call 773-472-6469 ext. 403 or email [email protected]

Chicago Kicks Off HIV Testing Collaborative

There are currently 22,000 people living with HIV in Chicago, according to The Chicago Department of Public Health. More than half could be controlled with medication, before they progress to AIDS. With this in mind, they Chicagoland National HIV Testing Collaborative will kick off their month-long HIV testing initiative, Step Up, Get Tested.

On June 5, the groups will hold a press conference at the James R. Thompson Center, featuring statements from elected officials, community leaders and public health officials, including Governor Pat Quinn, State Senator Jacqueline Collins, Cathy Yanda of OraSure Technologies, with Master of Ceremonies David Munar, president/CEO of AIDS Foundation of Chicago.

The collaborative will offer free and confidential HIV testing and Hepatitis C education using the OraQuick ADVANCE� Rapid HIV Test. Their goal is to test up to 500 people in one day with this painless test that uses oral fluid to provide results in as little as 20 minutes.

For more information, visit http://www.stepupgettested.com