Differences Between Us And Wat Opot

HIV has affected people all across the world. HIV comes with physical and mental symptoms. The body symptoms include skin flaking off, being dry, skin peeling off (Saliba 23) , fingernails falling off (32), and weight loss (14). Mentally it is hard to sleep, people become weak, and are tired all the time (23). People all across the world are infected with this disease, and the problem with this is the fact that most do not even know they have it. The most people who are infected each year are African Americans, gays, or bisexuals. 10,315 African Americans were infected in 2015. The U.S.A. has estimated about 1.1 million are infected with the disease. Equally to about 12,333 deaths happened in 2014 from AIDS related diseases, and 6,721 deaths from AIDS directly. Although there are a large amount of people getting infected, on the other hand eighteen percent of the population with HIV is declining since 2008-2014 (“U.S. Statistics”). In the world about 33.2 million people worldwide have HIV, with 22.5 million people in sub Saharan Africa are living with this condition, one out of nine people who live in South America have HIV or AIDS (Saliba 8).

One memory resounds in my head. My mind wanders and I think about my parents. Such good people, taken in the blink of an eye. They were never supposed to get this disease. We were a wealthy family.

The book In a Rocket Made of Ice is about kids that live in Cambodia in the community of Wat Opot, many of whom have HIV/AIDS Gail Gutradt tells the story of how she went to Wat Opot to help as a volunteer for these children, and even sometimes adults that end up there. She explains how

Fears and misconceptions regarding AIDS began when only the homosexual community contracted it. Therefore, people started to believe that only the homosexuals would get the AIDS and blamed them for the cause of the disease. The public was not in fear until some people who were not homosexuals contracted the disease. It was at this time, that the public’s attitude shifted into the fear that anyone was able to have AIDS; it was a sexually transmitted disease. Many were also deceived by the government’s actions. For example, one woman in the movie began to become sick after a blood transfusion. She always thought that it was due to surgical problems, but actually she had contracted AIDS and the doctors knew but didn’t do anything about it. This also caused panic because, even though the government knew AIDS was spreading around they did not do anything about it.

HIV/AIDS has been responsible for one of the worst epidemics in history. In her book “The Invisible Cure” Helen Epstein details why Africa in particular was so devastated by the disease, which countries failed and which succeeded in the struggle to contain the virus, and why this happened. Epstein highlights a particular phenomenon, that first took place in Uganda, but which can be translated to many countries and situations, and which she calls “the invisible cure.”

The article is conveying how orphans live and are affected by AIDS taking one, both or a loved one who is afflicted with AIDS. Surviving the death of a loved one ensures a hard life that is vividly verbalized by the orphans. VanRooyen, Frood, & Ricks will follow an organized and appropriate presentation of these orphans that live in sub-Saharan Africa.

HIV and AIDS information is very sensitive because of the potential stigmas that are attached to having one of these conditions. One stigma would be how the person contracted the disease because some people would make the assumption that they contracted it through sexual intercourse or by sharing needles, when in reality they could have contracted the condition from their mother during childbirth. Another stigma would be that only drug users or gay men contract the condition even though this a myth, it is still a stigma. For many people who have HIV or AIDS worry constantly about people knowing and fear of being discriminated because they have this condition. It is not like people want to walk around wearing a label saying,” Hey, look at me, I have HIV”. Anyone is at risk of contracting HIV or AIDS, especially if they have a high-risk behavior. Thankfully the confidentiality of HIV and AIDS

The continents political, religious, media, and other leaders are unwilling to open up and fight the disease. The problem with this is no one is spreading awareness about AIDS. To add, the World doesn’t know much about AIDS and how much it is affecting Africa as a country.

The focus group revealed that on the series they rarely seen the happy side of a person live with HIV. “Generally focus group members felt that shows like this help people understand that people living with HIV are living with one more thing to deal with instead of always being consumed with the possibility of death or illness” (Dines and Humez).

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.

In 2015, specifically in LA downtown, I met Sara who is an African American girl who was suffering from HIV virus. She told me her sadly story when she was having sexual things with random people just because of having money. She didn’t have any knowledge about this virus. So, because of that, she got the HIV virus, and she thanked god that she treated so long to be clean. So, some people in this world don’t know what the AIDS means. So, the AIDS is a dangerous virus that attack cells human’s immune system, and if the people who didn’t treat themselves in the hospital, they probably are going to die. It is dangerous because this virus happens when the human’s immune system badly damaged and it becomes impressible to opportunistic infections. When the number of the human CD4 cells decrease below 200 cells per cubic millimeter of blood, it is considered to have progressed to AIDS. People who have the AIDS virus need medical treatment to prevent death. Overall, it takes time to treat around one year, and without treatment it is typically survive about three years (AIDS.gov). According to Tony L. Whitehead that between June 1981 and October 1995 in United states that U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention got report of 501, 310 cases of AIDS. In addition, there were sixty-two percent of groups who have died, and although African American was represent only 12 percent of the United States, African American was represent 34 percent among them. In only five years, the

Fisher wants the AIDS community to come together and take a stand. They will no longer be silenced and everyone should become optimistic about the awareness of AIDS. Children need to be informed about this disease so one day the numbers of death will go down. “ It is our task to seek safety for our children, not in quiet denial, but in effective action” said Fisher. One day the world will be more aware of this disease

Moreover, HIV affects everyone across the globe. Today in the community HIV is known as the fear disease. In today society, everyone fears of catching the viruses although they are more dangerous disease out there still the norms about HIV are high. In the early 20s when the virus was first detected, treatments were poor, and the prognosis was death. However, in today society HIV made progress. The once known the death sentence virus turn tables to a manageable disease so how this disease continue to affect the community? First of all, the numbers of new HIV cases continue to increase according to the national Institute of Allergy and infectious Diseases (NIAID). Also according to NIAID more than 1.1 million people in the U.S population are infected and more than 20 percent are unaware of the fact they are infected. Also an average of 50,000 new cases reported each year not even mentions the ones unaware of their

“My childhood was very difficult, as I had to overcome the obstacles that came with having this disease. I always have to worry about whether or not I will end up in the hospital. I didn’t always have the same opportunities as my peers; however, with my faith in the Lord, I am content with my life situation,” says Kyle.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the region of the world that is most affected by HIV/AIDS. The United Nations reports that an estimated 25.4 million people are living with HIV and that approximately 3.1 million new infections occurred in 2004. To put these figures in context, more than 60 percent of the people living with the infection reside in Africa. Even these staggering figures do not quite capture the true extent and impact that this disease causes on the continent. In 1998, about 200,000 Africans died as a result of various wars taking place on the continent. In that same year, more than 2 million succumbed to HIV/AIDS (Botchwey, 2000).