Oregon Public Broadcasting

The health agency in charge of Idaho’s five northernmost counties is offering free HIV tests Monday in recognition of World AIDS Day. Health officials believe many people who have sex with multiple partners are not taking the risk of HIV seriously enough.

Just 37 people in the entire state have reported testing positive for the disease this year. But 11 of those cases came during a three-week period this fall in the city of Pocatello. Health officials there say all of those people were 30 or younger and had sex with people they met on the Internet.

Donna Holden, a Panhandle Health District nurse in Coeur d’Alene, says many people have forgotten the AIDS scare of the 1980s and have become complacent about the disease.

Holden: “People really think of H-I-V AIDS as being a homosexual disease, but in reality we’re seeing more young people and more women at risk in developing H-I-V.”

Holden says the federal Centers for Disease Control recommends yearly H-I-V testing for teenagers and adults, even if they have none of the risk factors for contracting the virus.

Health officials believe there are hundreds of infected Idahoans who don’t know they are H-I-V positive.