More than 100 people turned out for the Sexually Transmitted Infection testing day that happened on campus earlier this month.

The theme for the event on April 11th was “Test Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself,” where students were invited to be tested for HIV free of charge. Planned Parenthood was at the event handing out free condoms, a representative from Fresno State’s Health Center came to give information, and the Fresno County Health Department did the actual testing.

The public health 90, contemporary health issues class decided to host the event for students after a discussion in class sparked the idea.

“If people get tested there will be less people getting infected with HIV,” Sydnee Capshew, a student in the class said.

Capshew said that more students showed up at the event than they could actually test.

“We had 80 sign up, but we could only get through two people per half hour,” she said.

According to Capshew, some of the other students were referred to the university’s health center, or their numbers were taken down so they could be given more information later.

Ashlie Day, another member of the class, said that she hopes the event catches on, and Fresno State, along with other universities, will begin to hold these types of events on a regular basis.

“We wanted students to be more comfortable talking about HIV and STIs because it’s kind of a taboo topic,” Day said. “The whole goal was that this will hopefully be an ongoing event, if not a couple times a year, at least annually, so [the rate of] HIV and STI’s won’t go up in college students,” she said.

According to national data from the Center of Disease Control, nearly half of sexually active people will contract a Sexually Transmitted Infection by the time they are 25 years old.

“One of the main issues we wanted to address was that many people don’t know they have an STI,” Dr. Greg Thatcher, assistant professor of public health, said. “Many STI’s do not initially have symptoms (asymptomatic) and others have latency periods.”

Thatcher said that the turnout they did receive demonstrated a change in people’s concern about their health.

“Having 100 students wanting to be tested for an STI in public, without regard to stigma, is huge.”

Despite the turnout, only 16 students were actually tested due to the fact that there was a 20 to 30 minute wait for the results.

Thatcher said that a lot of students don’t realize that they can get the same testing at the health center with its Family Pact program.

The students from the class funded the entire event out of their own pockets. The cost was approximately $500, which included providing snacks, water and T-shirts for those who were tested. They also handed out information about every type of STI.