Aids : A Relatively New Disease

In South Africa, AIDS is one of the top causes of death. South Africa has the biggest AIDS/HIV epidemic in the world because of violence against women, poverty, and lack of education. Given this, “Africans account for nearly 70% of those who live with HIV and are dying of AIDS” (Morgenstern, Dr. Michael).

Nearly three decades ago, there was an increase in deaths of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. Developing countries have experienced the greatest HIV/AIDS morbidity and mortality, with the highest prevalence rates recorded in young adults in sub-Saharan Africa. In South Africa over three million people are killed by this disease (Macfarlene3). After this epidemic spreaded in Africa and killed people it branched out to other countries in the world.

Acquired Immune-Deficiency Syndrome, which is popularly known as AIDS is a deadly disease as it attacks and adversely destroys body’s immune system. AIDS is brought about by a virus called Human Immune-Deficiency Virus, better known as HIV. This virus is minute, even invisible to a powerful microscope and can remain in the body for years without showing any visible symptoms. AIDS is the final stage of infection of the virus. It takes a period of about 10 years between being infected with HIV developing AIDS. The first case of AIDS infection in America was detected in 1959. Later, AIDS emerged as a fatal widespread disease in the 1980s in almost all countries in the world. This started with

HIV/Aids pandemic is high in South Africa as compared to any other country in the world. Recent statistic show that 12% of South Africa’s population lives with the virus and including young children the percentage rises to 18% of the total population. Other neighboring countries such as Botswana also have high prevalence rates and this means that almost all southern African countries rank top among the most infected nations not only in Africa but the world around. In the past few years the number of south Africans being diagnosed of HIV has been rising and even though the infections among adolescents particularly male have been dropping the damage this infection is causing remains substantial both socially and economically. Based on demographic grouping the most infected are females below the age of 40. And of the females infected about 80% are aged between 20-24 years. Infection among males stands below 40% with those aged above 30 years being the most infected. The fact that aids is high in South Africa more than any other country in Africa makes it necessary to understand the reasons behind it. Steinberg (2008) in his book “Sizwe 's test: a young man 's journey through Africa 's AIDS epidemic” fails to understand why many people still die in south Africa despite the emergence of antiretroviral drugs. He however realizes that “stigma” remains the greatest challenge in as far as HIV/AIDS is

Throughout the Age of AIDS film many topics that were related to AIDS were brought up that I did not know anything about before. I did not know that there could so many strings attached to a disease and have such an influence in people’s lives whether it was negative or positive.

In The Invisible Cure, Helen Epstein talks about why HIV/AIDS rate is so high in Africa compared to the rest of the world. Through the book, she gives us an account of the disease and the struggles that many health experts and ordinary Africans went through to understand this disease, and how different African countries approached the same problem differently. Through this paper, I will first address the different ways Uganda and Southern African countries, South Africa and Botswana in particular, dealt with this epidemic, and then explain how we can use what we have learned from these African countries to control outbreaks of communicable disease elsewhere around the world.

Emerging in the early 1980s, HIV/AIDS was an unknown disease that spread rapidly throughout the United States. In the beginning not much information was found due to this being a very new disease with a completely unknown background. As decades passed, research has increased as well as the number of cases of people reporting that they are infected. Being that 1 out of every 4 people are infected with HIV/AIDS, this disease has had such an immense impact socially, domestically, as well as politically. Due to this increase in cases, the United States Congress passed the CARE Act (Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act). Named after a young AIDS activist, Ryan White, the CARE Act helps primarily fund health care and support services for

Transmission of the HIV virus, as well as any other types of STDs, is a subject that needs to be discussed seriously and cautiously. There are many ways that one can acquire HIV/AIDS and it is very beneficial that every person is aware of the certain procedures to follow in order to avoid such an afflicting harm. The most common transmission of HIV is through sexual intercourse, where bodily fluids such as semen, vaginal secretions, or even blood are transferred from an HIV positive person to a non-infected person. AIDS is the deadliest sexually transmitted disease reaping about 13,700 deaths per year(Web, HIV in the US). There are approximately 36.9 million people living with the HIV virus, which is why more prevention techniques should be utilized across the globe.

HIV-1, responsible for most of the disease today, was first discovered to have originated from Chimpanzees in 1999. HIV-2, the second type of the virus, was discovered to be transmitted through monkeys most likely through the consumption of their meat. There are two different types of the illness: HIV-1 and HIV-2. HIV, Human Immunodeficiency Virus, essentially breaks down the body’s CD4 cells which help to assist fighting off infections in your body. Overtime, this will hindrance your body’s ability to fight off diseases which can be potentially life threatening. The last stage of HIV is linked to AIDS, Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. AIDS is a specific group of diseases/conditions that are indicative of severe immunosuppression related to infection with HIV. This makes people infected with the disease more vulnerable to opportunistic infections which their body will be unable to fight off towards the later stages of the disease. Most people diagnosed with AIDS have an estimated three years to live, but people that do not get diagnosed have an estimated one year to survive.

The AIDS crisis has been a very controversial issue in the history of South Africa beginning in 1982. During this time South Africa has made a government transition from apartheid to a democracy. Since many national issues needed to be address, the AIDS crisis was pushed aside, leaving a pandemic in the process. Many factors have contributed to the issues including: poverty, social instability, high levels of sexually transmitted infections, the low status of women, sexual violence, migrant labor, limited access to quality medical care, and a history of poor leadership in the response to the pandemic. After three decades of controversy in South Africa dealing with issues involving the government, medicine, and conflict the country is still feeling the after-effect today regarding the largest AIDS pandemic.

The answers to the questions above are much easier said than done. The majority of the people with HIV/AIDS live in sub-Saharan Africa (Figure 1) (13). As of 2013, 39 million people have died since this disease was brought to light in the early 1980s (13). Even though this disease has been at the forefront of research for decades, scientific advances in the field have been slow to come about. There is no cure for the disease; however new antiretroviral treatments have allowed the virus replication to be controlled at a more manageable level (8). There have been concentrated global efforts to spread these drugs through the crisis areas of the disease, but efforts have not always been successful.

HIV is not a new disease that everyone is talking about these days. This disease each year produces approximately 50,000 new infections and of these new infections, gay males and the black population are the two categories that produce the highest rate of infections. Overall, since the beginning of the epidemic decades ago, over 300,000 gay males have gone from HIV to AIDS and eventually have died from this disease (“HIV in the United States: At A Glance,” 2014). With this information showing the number of infections and deaths, it is without a doubt that there is a stigma that exists for HIV diagnoses by sexual orientation and race.

Although advancements in AIDS research have continued over the past 2 decades, the misconception that people can contract the AIDS virus from sharing a drink is still prevalent. Aids is a major issue throughout the world and kills many people. One of the problems with aids is that it can kill people. A current solution for aids is there are medicines that people suffering from aids take and these medicines increase a person with aids life span. A future plan for aids is to find a cure so that people stop dying from aids. Aids is a recurring problem throughout history and it needs to be stopped so people stop dying.

Picture this: a young child who is very skinny, ribs and all other bones are showing through the skin, they are born with HIV. it then leads to AIDS, due to their parents. HIV is a Human Immunodeficiency Virus. If HIV is left untreated, it can lead to AIDS, which is an acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. In Nigeria, Africa millions of people have the disease of AIDS and HIV. There is not many treatment options or solutions for this serious issue that takes place all over the country. There are a few aspects one must understand about this movement to fully understand its importance, whether those are what exactly HIV/AIDS is and how deadly it actually is, how potently it is actually affecting Nigeria and other

Throughout the history of human, different types of killer diseases occurred. Despite the severity of these diseases people always sought ways to alleviating them. Many of these epidemic diseases occurred as a result of pollution or changes in the environment. Recently, there have been the emergency of the most dangerous and killer diseases many of them are infectious through different ways. Some of the most popular include HIV/AIDS, Ebola among others. However, while researchers and governments were struggling to alleviate and fight against HIV/AIDS there emerged a new form of viral disease that terrified the entire population of the planet. ZIKA virus is an emerging killer disease that has symptoms similar to a very mild dengue fever. This paper therefore is a review of an article entitled “The Viral Polymerase Inhibitor 7-Deaza-2’-C-Methyladenosine Is a Potent Inhibitor of In Vitro Zika Virus Replication and Delays Disease Progression in a Robust Mouse Infection Model”. The paper is intended to highlight the key problem of the research and approach used to address it.After the paper will conduct a SWOT analysis of the approach suggested by the study to address the research question.