HIV In Sub-Saharan Africa

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.

The brunt of the impact of HIV has taken over the African American population due to complex set of social, individual and environmental factors. The spread of the disease is the number one cause of death in African Americans, both male and female. It is alarming and at the same time devastating for the African people throughout the world not able to organize and work together to combat the reality of HIV that is invading the black communities. With this alarming epidemic, this paper will identify the internal and external risk factors or challenges affecting the prevention/intervention that has been developed for the African Americans with HIV.

In the 1980's the HIV/AIDS epidemic devastated many communities, growing panic over the incurable disease that many people were dying from. In the past, there wasn't a lot of information on how HIV/AIDS was contracted or spread, and thus the epidemic instilled much fear over fatal sexually transmitted diseases. In today’s times I fear that our communities have become distance from HIV/AIDS and other STDs because of large advancements in modern medicine the United States have been able to achieve. Americans don’t seem as worried as they once where about contracting devastating STDs and this is a luxury other areas of the world don’t have. I am aware that in sub-Saharan Africa there are millions of people who are living with HIV, and although more and more adults and children are reported to die each year from this devastating illness (nearly one million in Africa alone) the population grows still, estimating to grow into the millions by 2050( Population Reference Bureau, 2013). This Illness is so disheartening to hear about as it can even be passed down to the infected individual’s children.

So, the issue at hand and the recommendation concerning preventive health and counseling prevent sexually transmitted diseases and human immunodeficiency virus begins with the efficacy of risk reduction (sexual behavior), prevention, intervention, and clinician counseling deliver in a variety of settings (clinician or non-clinician).

In my studies I have found that HIV/AIDS is one of the largest growing epidemics among African American’s. Along with the stigmas individuals have to face, there lay the unspoken thought process of “It wouldn’t or couldn’t happen to me”. Poverty, severe drug abuse, unprotected sex, and lack of education are just a few contributing factors to the growing numbers related to this infectious disease among the African American communities. When you add all these factors into one community the results is just that of the soaring number of individual infected from young to old.

In the United States (US) there are currently 1.2 million people infected/living with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). The HIV epidemic in the US is concentrated in the following at risk populations and geographic area: (1) Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with other men of all races/ethnicities (high burden of HIV among Black gay and bisexual men), (2) Black women and men, (3) Latinos/Latinas, (4) People who inject drugs (PWID), (5) Youth ages 13 to 24 years (high burden of HIV among young Black gay and bisexual men), (6) People in the Southern US, (7) Transgender women (high burden of HIV among Black transgender women) (The White

Among individuals aged 13-24, an estimated 51% of those living with HIV at the end of 2013 did not know they were infected. In 2015, 39,513 individuals were diagnosed with HIV infection in the United States. In the United States, 6,721 individuals died from HIV and AIDS in 2014. African americans who adhere to an HIV program, will more than likely have an increase in compliance to HIV treatment. One of the most valuable means of combating the HIV/AIDS epidemic is through health education and awareness campaigns. Some of these campaigns emphasize abstinence while others focus on safe sexual activity. In the United States, HIV prevention programs had previously focused on abstinence education as the primary means of preventing HIV infection.

HIV/AIDS is a health issue that has affected the lives of 35 million individuals globally and has continued to spread due to social conditions which surround us. Risky behaviors such as men having sex with men, large number of homeless population, large number of African American men incarcerated, and injection of drugs also attribute to the large number cases of HIV/AIDS.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the majority of people in the world living with HIV/AIDS reside in Sub-Saharan Africa. Since there is currently no vaccine to prevent the spread of the infection, there have been countless attempts in the past to control the spread of HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa. There are multiple ways of infection spread in Sub-Saharan Africa. People are contracting the disease through, drug use, sexual relations, giving birth, and blood-to-blood contact. With so many ways to contract the infection it makes the prevention of spreading the infection so difficult, especially in such a low-income country. These challenges have not stopped many scientists, educators, and health-care professionals create interventions to try and stop the wildfire, that is the spread of HIV/AIDS in Sub- Saharan Africa. Most interventions have failed and some have helped. There are a huge amount of factors that need to be carefully thought about when creating an intervention. What looks good on paper may not work for the culture of a country. Making all people in sub- Saharan Africa listen, understand and act on a plan is nearly impossible.

Sub-Saharan Africa has the most serious HIV/AIDS epidemic in the world. In 2013, an estimated 24.7 million people were living with HIV, accounting for 71% of the global total. In the same year, there were an estimated 1.5 million new HIV infections and 1.1 million AIDS-related deaths. The second largest country most impacted by HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa is Lesotho.

Just as clearly, experience shows that the right approaches, applied quickly enough with courage and resolve, can and do result in lower HIV infection rates and less suffering for those affected by the epidemic. An ever-growing AIDS epidemic is not inevitable; yet, unless action against the epidemic is scaled up drastically, the damage already done will seem minor compared with what lies ahead. This may sound dramatic, but it is hard to play down the effects of a disease that stands to kill more than half of the young adults in the countries where it has its firmest hold—most of them before they finish the work of caring for their children or providing for their elderly parents. Already, 18.8 million people around the world have died of AIDS, 3.8 million of them children. Nearly twice that many—34.3 million—are now living with HIV, the virus [9].

HIV is a serious problem both in the United States as well as worldwide. The

HIV is a virus that is spread almost all over the world. Although in some places health care isn’t as developed and therefore it spreads more in those regions. Sub-Saharan Africa holds more than 70%, 25 million, of all HIV positive people in the world. Second highest is Eastern Europe together with Central Asia with 1.3 million. It is spread over most of the world, including Asia and the Pacific, the Caribbean, Central and South America, North Africa and the Middle East and Western and Central Europe (“The Regional Picture”).

A little over three decades ago, reports emerged of a new virus that was outbreaking in parts of the United States. Within the first twelve months of these reports, the disease sprung up among particular people groups such as homosexual men, patients with hemophilia, intravenous drug users and blood-transfusion recipients. Shortly after, an epidemic of AIDS emerged in Central Africa, particularly affecting women. Little was it known at that time that these small handful of cases would eventually multiply into the tens of millions of cases that makes HIV/AIDS one of the greatest epidemics in the modern history of global health. This essay seeks to demonstrate that although HIV/AIDS is one of the greatest health threats to the international community, interventions can be created which allow the successful treatment, prevention, care and support for communities facing the pandemic.

An annual report recently released by the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS indicated that the number of HIV-infected individuals increased 10 percent in the last year, bringing the number of people worldwide who are now carrying the virus to over 33 million. According to the report, half of these new infections were in people15 to 24 years old, and there were 11 new infections a minute. Sub-Saharan Africa reportedly accounts for two thirds of the infected population and about 12 million AIDS related deaths. There were 200,000 new HIV infections in Latin American and the Caribbean last year and 800,000 new HIV infections reported in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.