Students Should Protect Their Health, Get Tested

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, at least 50 percent of sexually active people will get the human papillomavirus (HPV) at some time in their lives. Every year in the United States, about 6.2 million people get HPV, which is an alarmingly large statistic. There are safe and easy ways to prevent against the most common STD among young people.

HPV is responsible for up to 70 percent of all cervical cancers and 90 percent of genital warts. The most common four types of the disease are treatable with the Gardasil vaccine. The vaccine protects against 10 types of HPV with three simple shots that are covered by medical insurance. However, if people don't get the vaccine and are concerned about their health, they can always get tested.

In February, UConn hosted a free STD testing clinic. The clinic tested for diseases more serious than HPV such as syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia. If the student tested positive for any of the three diseases, they were offered free treatment. The testing was anonymous so students did not have to worry about awkward conversations with their parents over mysterious insurance bills. This was very beneficial and more students should have taken advantage of it.

The clinic is a safe and confidential way for students to protect their health but it only has enough supplies for 200 people to get tested. Because students are not paying a fee, there are limited resources due to an austerity budget. Perhaps the clinic should require a small fee. That way, they could allow more students to get tested and more students could take advantage of anonymous testing.

In addition, if the clinic charged a small fee for the testing, the cost burden can be more equitably distributed. Not everybody is sexually active and not everybody necessarily needs or chooses to get tested. If there was a small fee for testing, students who want to get tested could be responsible for it, thereby expanding the amount of people that the clinic can provide with help.

UConn held a successful STD clinic in November that preceded the February testing. If the clinic started to charge money for testing, the school may be able to provide more than two clinics per year to students. Anonymous STD testing is extremely advantageous to students. Even if there is a cost, students should take advantage of this opportunity and make an effort to protect their health. The number of students who have STDs is getting dangerously high. There is no reason to not take advantage of convenient and cheap testing.