AIDS KNOWLEDGE AND EDUCATION FOR SOUTH KOREAN-BORN STUDENTS ATTENDI

According to the Centers for Disease Control (1998) (CDC), approximately 13 million people in the world now have AIDS. In America, 641,086 cases have been reported since the discovery of the HIV virus and about half of these have now died. UNAIDS (2001) reports that it was projected that by the end of 2001, 40 million people, globally, would be living with HIV, with most of the new infections found in young adults; around one-third of those individuals who are currently living with HIV/AIDS, are ages 15 to 24 years and most do not know they carry the virus. In fact, UNAIDS claims that millions know nothing about HIV or not enough to protect themselves from it. However, the Centers for Disease Control (1998) also reports a decline in reports of HIV/AIDS, attributing a great deal of the decrease to prevention efforts. Specifically, the CDC noted that:

Prior to the introduction of combination therapies for HIV, AIDS incidence was increasing at a rate of less than 5 percent each year. Partly as a result of prevention efforts targeting those at highest risk, the epidemic had slowed considerably from the early years in the epidemic, when increases were 65 percent to 95 percent each year. In 1996, estimated AIDS incidence dropped for the first time,