If preliminary statistics from surveys of universities across the country hold true, one in every 300 college students has the AIDS virus, said Gayle Lloyd, public affairs specialist at the national Centers for Disease Control.

A cooperative study by the American College Health Association and CDC is sampling 20,000 students from 20 campuses for the Human Immunodeficiency Virus antibody. The study, which will be completed in February, has sampled about 10,000 students so far.

“The study is being conducted through college health facilities,” Lloyd said. “It is a blind study, so no identifying information is attached to the samples, and students don’t know they’re being tested.”

Lloyd said the results from this study will determine how prevalent the AIDS virus is on college campuses. She said many college students are sexually active, which puts them at a high risk for AIDS.

Tana Kentsch, communicable disease program coordinator for the DeKalb County Health Department, said there have been five positive AIDS cases in DeKalb County, and five other individuals have tested positive for the HIV virus. Those testing positive might not show signs of the disease itself, but they are carriers and can pass AIDS on to someone else.

The health department tests about eight people per month for AIDS, Kentsch said.

Overall, she said DeKalb County is fairly representative of a rural community in the number of people reported having AIDS or HIV. The number might be a small percentage higher because of the presence of a university, she said.

NIU’s University Health Services has performed 21 AIDS tests since Aug. 22, none of which have been positive, said Carol Sibley, health center communicable disease coordinator. Tests are done at the health center as a requirement for marriage licenses, as a precaution for sexual assault victims and anonymously for people who fear they might have the disease. All tests results and names are kept confidential.

Besides AIDS, students are at a risk of contracting other sexually transmitted diseases. There have been 75 cases of Chlamydia and 25 cases of Gonorrhea treated at the health center since the beginning of the fall semester, Sibley said.

“It’s important with STDs to find the sexual contacts of someone who has tested positive so they can be contacted and can get treatment,” Sibley said. Most people notify their contacts themselves, but if they do not, the health center will contact them, she said.

Marci Gubelman, coordinator of the STD program at the county health department, said in the 1984 annual report for DeKalb County, 53 people tested positive for Gonorrhea and one for Syphilis. In a six-month report, 130 people tested positive for Chlamydia.

“Besides those who tested positive, two to three times more people (sexual contacts of the people who tested positive) are being treated,” Gubelman said. In addition, it can be assumed that for each person who tests positive for an STD, there are two or three people who are not aware they are infected.