Recently, the students at the Normandy High School in St. Louis have been confronting a situation that is not very pleasant as a person informed health officials that as many as 50 students at the school may have been infected with the HIV virus.

The person notifying the authorities remains under anonymity as health officials believe that divulging names won’t help anybody. There is also no information on how the students might have, if they did, contacted the virus, though some say that it may have been through sexual intercourse, tattoos or drugs.

Momentarily the district has asked for help from the national AIDS organizations in order to minimize the fallout as much as possible. There is also the need to contain the epidemic, if there is one, and not let it spread. The students at The Normandy High School are scheduled for HIV testing in order to calm the spirits and, ultimately, to shed some light on the situation.

The students have to volunteer for the test as the school has no legal power to make them take the HIV test. The district says that such a case was not encountered before and that they don’t know how many from the 1,300 students are going to take the test. The best thing the school can do is give advice to parents on how to manage kids in crisis and spread information on how HIV infections occur.

The tests will be done in secrecy, the gymnasium being split in six stations where only health officials and students are allowed. The students may require information about AIDS and may volunteer to get tested after which they leave through a separate door, in this way nobody knowing who got tested or not.