An HIV Lesson for Us All!

[Virtual Violet]

I light of our International Day of Service focusing on HIV/AIDS, I thought this was an eye-opening lesson for us all.
The people involved are so young, this is a tragedy all the way around.


From the Chicago Sun Times

Chicagoan sparks South Dakota AIDS panic

April 27, 2002

BY FRANK MAIN CRIME REPORTER


South Dakota's governor announced Friday that hundreds of people are expected to receive tests for HIV after a Chicago teenager attending college in the state was charged with allegedly having unprotected sex--even though authorities say he knew he tested HIV-positive.

Nikko Briteramos, 18, a freshman basketball player at Si Tanka-Huron University, on Wednesday became the first person in South Dakota charged under the nearly two-year-old law.

"I did not think I would ever have to use this law," said Michael Moore, the Beadle County, S.D., state's attorney. "It's shocking. It is a wake-up call."

If convicted, Briteramos faces up to 15 years in prison on each of five counts under a state law against knowingly exposing a person to HIV that went into effect in July 2000. He was in jail Friday in lieu of $10,000 bail.

Health officials notified Briteramos on March 27 that a blood donation he gave in February tested positive for the disease, Moore said.

On Tuesday, he told health authorities he began a sexual relationship with a young woman about three weeks ago and that they had sex five times, but he failed to tell her he was infected with the disease, Moore said. Tests on her have not shown any signs of HIV, which can lead to AIDS, health officials said.

Interviews with Briteramos led investigators to two other women who have tested positive for the virus, said Doneen Hollingsworth, secretary of the South Dakota Department of Health. She said the department is trying to track down the source of the virus.

In the state capital of Pierre on Friday, South Dakota Gov. Bill Janklow said more than 50 other people have been tested for the virus. None of them appears to have the disease, but more tests will be done in three weeks, three months and six months, he said.

One of the people tested gave the names of 70 others who were in contact with Briteramos, and the chain will undoubtedly run into the hundreds before everyone is tested, Janklow said.

Investigators have built a flow chart with Briteramos at the top. More than 10 boxes are below his name, each containing the name of a sexual partner. The names of their partners are listed in boxes on another line, and so on.

"One of his partners could name 30 recent partners, and over her lifetime, about 100 partners," said a source close to the investigation.

As health investigators follow the chain of people who have been in sexual contact with Briteramos and his partners, hundreds of people are expected to be tested, the governor said.

The AIDS rate in South Dakota is among the lowest in the nation at 1.1 cases for every 100,000 residents.

Moore said the investigation is expanding into other states. Hollingsworth said the Illinois Department of Public Health was contacted to see whether Briteramos was reported HIV-positive, but he was not. South Dakota has not contacted Illinois about any of his sexual partners, she said.

The Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund's Patricia Logue had not heard of the case until contacted by a reporter, but she said the lesson here is clear.

"Anyone who's out there having sex should be having protected sex," said Logue, the Chicago-based senior counsel for the group, which deals with issues affecting gays and those infected with HIV and AIDS. "It's unfortunate that this kind of thing has to happen....With this [South Dakota] law or without this law, people really need to . . . look after their own welfare."

Officials said they did not know the last time Briteramos was in Chicago.

Public health alerts about him have been broadcast on TV and radio stations in South Dakota. And Huron University students were informed about the situation at a Thursday meeting.

"There certainly was shock here that this could happen in a small town," said Brad Smith, interim chancellor at the 500-student school in Huron, population 11,893, about 120 miles from Sioux Falls in east central South Dakota.

"There is a level of concern, certainly for Nikko and his friends that he came into contact with," Smith said. "I would expect an awful lot of students to get tests."

The 6-foot-7 Briteramos was a forward on the university's Screaming Eagles basketball team.

He had graduated from Sullivan High School on Chicago's North Side after spending 11 months at Mercy Home for Boys and Girls, said Mark Mroz, a Mercy spokesman.

Briteramos was a 15-year-old sophomore at St. Patrick High School when the school asked Mercy to accept him into its residential program, Mroz said.

"We helped him academically and with how to deal with peers and adults, but if a young man does not want to remain here, there is no way to force him," Mroz said.

Contributing: AP