Epidemiological Perspective Essay

One of the big factors early on is that no one wanted to be associated with AIDS due to the fact that it was considered a homosexual man’s disease. There was a lot of fear, denial and anger surrounding this disease. In 1981at the CDC Dr. Guinan asks that a report about an epidemic with gay men had broken out and he wanted it published in the medical journal. The fear of the word “homosexual” was marked off and not used for that article. It took a long time for the realization that this disease could affect everyone from homosexual males, IV drug users, blood transfusion patients, women and even babies. Even though it was initially considered the disease came from gay men and their sexual practices it crossed all borders as time went on. Still today there is some prejudice regarding AIDS. (Spelling, Vincent &

The disease known as AIDS, acquired immune deficiency syndrome, is the final stage of HIV, human immunodeficiency virus, which causes an exceptional amount of damage to the immune system. Certain white blood cells known as lymphocytes are destroyed, resulting in loss of the body's ability to protect itself against disease. Victims undergo an increased susceptibility to infections, various types of cancers, and neurological disorders. The origins and widespread epidemic of AIDS occurred from the 1970s to 1990s in the United States. There are a number of factors that may have contributed to the sudden spread including widespread drug use, the blood industry, and international travel. The 1970s saw an increase in the availability of heroin

It is often cited that the HIV/Aids epidemic that hit the United States in the 1980’s (though there is some evidence that it started even before then), came into light due to several high profile incidents and the eventual loss of several thousand lives. Many believe that due to

We have been aware of HIV and AIDS since the 1970s (Miller, 2012), and though there have been treatments and reduction in the number of people infected, the disease remains. The disease results in death usually following opportunistic infections as a result of AIDS destruction of the immune system, but thanks to modern medicine “many people

AIDS was detected in the United States was in 1981, when groups of men in New York and

A deadly virus that has killed thousands, terrifying many people that encounter it. FRONTLINE’S “The Age of AIDS” explains the history of the HIV/AIDS pandemic and the issues that slowly unraveled as society tries to understand its ways. During the 1980s, it was a new and terrifying disease that took a hold on the nation. The increasing pandemic that occurred throughout many countries such as the United States, South Africa, Brazil, Thailand, Uganda and China comprised of certain characteristics that seem to intertwine with one another. The prevalence of stigma and discrimination, and the significance of the government’s impression on the disease are recurring factors throughout the film that help explain the pandemic of HIV/AIDS in a detailed manner.

Mass vaccination is the most likely cause of the epidemic. “A specific pool of Koprowski's vaccine was later shown to have been contaminated by an unknown virus.” This vaccine was given to over one million people from 1957-1960 and coincidentally there is no documented case of HIV or AIDS related infections before 1959.

Carl Zimmer the guest speaker of this broadcast states that in 1981 doctors described for the first time a new disease, a new syndrome which affected mostly homosexual men. The young men in Los Angeles were dying and the number of cases was growing faster and faster. The number of deaths was increasing from eighty to six hundred and twenty five in just the first few months. After the first few cases in LA, AIDS was declared to be one of the deadliest pandemics the world had ever seen after the plague in the Middle Ages.

The film Dallas Buyers Club is a biographical drama whose plot is based around the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. Early in the history of the illness, cases of a rare lung infection were found in five previously healthy young men. In addition to that, the young men all suffered from various other infections which indicated that their immune systems were not functioning properly. The new illness was so aggressive that before a report by the CDC could be published, two of the five men had succumbed to the illness. Besides the similar rare cases of lung infection amongst the five, there was one other shared characteristic; they were all gay men. By years’ end, there were 270 reported cases in gay men with the same disease; of that 270 however, 121 of those individuals had passed (Timeline of HIV/AIDS,2011). It was now clear that there was a new threat to gay men besides social ostracizing; HIV/AIDS had made its presence known.

According to a report published in the February 1998 edition of “Nature”, scientists identified what they believe is the earliest case of AIDs in a man from the Congo in 1959. (Lerner and Hombs 39) By the end of the year 1980, 80 men would have been diagnosed with at least of the opportunistic infections that are a characteristic of AIDs. (Lerner and Hombs 40) AIDs cases in the 1980s increased dramatically not only around the world but in the United States, primarily in larger cities like Los Angeles, New York City and San Francisco. The numbers of AIDs diagnoses and deaths spiraled out of control throughout the 1980s and towards the end of 1989 there were 117,500 cases of AIDS reported and 89,000 related deaths.(Lerner and Hombs 54) In the

Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is a chronic, potentially life-threatening condition caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). AIDS weakens the immune system hampering the body’s defense mechanisms. AIDS is known to be a deadly disease, especially if it is not treated in a timely manner. AIDS and HIV is an epidemic that is increasing among the African American population with roots tracing back to Africa, AIDS and HIV needs greater exposure and more awareness within the African American community and in the homosexual community.

The definition of AIDS is a disease in which there is a severe loss of the body’s cellular immunity, greatly lowered the resistance for things like infections and other bacteria’s and malignancy. The disease first started in the continent of Africa, which was apart of the chimpanzee version of a virus much like immunodeficiency virus. Which was known as simian human’s virus, this disease mutated and then manifested into the HIV virus once human beings began to hunt chimps. The disease Aids can be spread through the blood stream in a person, through cuts and things like that. Also it can be spread through unprotected sex and through the transactions of bodily fluids between different people. Once AIDS first was sited in

AIDS is the disease caused by human immunodeficiency virus type 1, or HIV-1 (referred to as HIV). HIV belongs to the retrovirus family, a group of viruses that have the ability to use cell 's ' machinery to replicate. HIV attacks the immune system by damaging or killing a specific type of white blood cell in the body called a T-lymphocyte, also called a CD4+ or T-helper cell. T-lymphocytes help the immune system perform its important task of fighting diseases in the body caused by invading germs. As a result of HIV infection, the immune system becomes weakened and the body has trouble battling certain infections caused by bacteria, viruses, parasites, and fungi. Many of these infections are highly unusual in people with healthy immune systems. They are called opportunistic infections because they take advantage of a weakened immune system. People with HIV disease not only are more likely to contract these infections, they are more likely to have them repeatedly and to become much more sick from them.

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is an obligate intracellular parasite found exclusively in humans. It is responsible for weakening the immune system and leading to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). The first case of AIDS was diagnosed in the U.S. in 1981, and in 1984 it was first proven that HIV caused AIDS. There is currently a pandemic of HIV/AIDS, with the highest incidence rate in Sub-Saharan Africa and the lowest rates in Western Europe and North America, due to better healthcare.

This was a result of sexual interaction between two men. Due to little or no protection it was more likely that those people would become infected. However, it wasn’t until the 1920s that HIV become more serious. Since there were no symptoms, people were unable to tell how or if they got infected (History of HIV, 2017). Afterwards, during the late 1970s, the virus spread to over five continents. It wasn’t around the 1980s when cases that involved healthy gay men, were becoming more frequent and reporting that they had become ill. There was a suggestion that said “the cause of the immune deficiency was sexual and the syndrome was initially called gay-related immune deficiency” (History of HIV, 2017, para.7). With over 7,000 cases of AIDS and 3,000 deaths related to AIDS, fear overtook San Francisco in 1984 as they closed bathhouses and sex clubs hoping it could prevent more people from being infected with AIDS. In spite of this, recently there has been a 44% decline of men infected with HIV due to