Hiv And Aids : Hiv / Aids Essay

Human Immunodeficiency Virus is HIV that develops into AIDS, which is Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. This virus starts to break down white blood cells, as a result the immune system starts to deteriorate and our greatest shield cannot fight any longer (Mayo Clinic, 2016). The CDC (2015) states, that over 1.2 million people live with HIV in the United States and most who are infected are oblivious of their disease. Healthy people 2020 has declared HIV a public health crisis in the United States, and continues to sweep the nation with more than 500,000 new cases each year (HealthyPeople2020,2016).

According to recent statistics from the Centers for Disease Control, approximately 1.2 million individuals in the United States have HIV (about 14 percent of which are unaware of their infection and another 1.1 million have progressed to AIDS. Over the past decade, the number of HIV cases in the US has increased, however, the annual number of cases remains stable at about 50, 000 new cases per year. Within these estimates, certain groups tend to carry the burden of these disease, particularly the gay, bisexual, and men who have sex with men (MSM) and among race/ethnic groups, Blacks/African American males remain disproportionately affected. (CDC)

In the 1980s, a mysterious disease began to take the lives of Americans. With the cause unknown, a fear grew among Americans. An unusually high rate of people was becoming sick with strange and rare diseases. When experimental treatments failed to work, people died. This mysterious disease is what we now know as HIV–Human Immunodeficiency Virus. In the past thirty-five years, the HIV has taken many turns in history. Although we do not hear about HIV and AIDS now, it is still a prevalent issue in the United States and in the world.

HIV and AIDS have affected millions of people throughout the world. Since 1981, there have been 25 million deaths due to AIDS involving men, women, and children. Presently there are 40 million people living with HIV and AIDS around the world and two million die each year from AIDS related illnesses. The Center for Disease Control estimates that one-third of the one million Americans living with HIV are not aware that they have it. The earliest known case of HIV was in 1959. It was discovered in a blood sample from a man in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Looking further into the genetics of this blood sample researchers suggested that it had originated from a virus going back to the late 1940’s or early 1950’s. In 1999,

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.

Epidemiologist: This role involves learning about the pattern and incidence of how the disease is transmitted and works to help find community prevention solutions. The portals of entry for HIV: skin via Injection or trauma, mucous membranes of mouth, penis, vagina and rectum during sexual activity, placenta to child during pregnancy. Portals of exit: blood, semen, pre-ejaculate, vaginal secretions and breast milk. Reservoirs: human blood, semen and vaginal secretions. The mode(s) of transmission: unprotected sex exposing mucous membranes to infected fluids, injection using contaminated needle, infusion from contaminated blood transfusion, accidental prick from contaminated needle, having an open wound come into contact with infected blood; virus passing from mother to baby through placenta, to baby through breast milk, or via interaction with vaginal secretions during birth. However HIV cannot be transmitted through saliva, tears or urine (Merck Manual, 2003).

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is a retrovirus that attacks the human immune system, your body’s means of defense. The virus attacks specific viral defense cells, known as CD4+. As the disease spreads and attacks more CD4+ cells, your body no longer maintains its’ ability to fight of infections and diseases which leads to the death of the host. The final stage of HIV is known as AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome). During this stage of the virus, the host gets infected and sick easily and can no longer fight off infections.

The face of the HIV epidemic has changed. People ages 50 and older now represent the fastest growing segment of HIV positive adults in the United States (Sankar et al, 2011). A workshop on HIV Infection and Aging estimated that by 2015, adults aged 50 and older will make up approximately 50% of all HIV/AIDS in the U.S. (Effros et al, 2008). Factors, including decreased efficiency of the immune system and decreased likelihood that older adults have been tested for HIV, increase the vulnerability of older adults to HIV transmission (Hillman & Broderick, 2002; Solomon, 1996).

The evidence it’s a new strain of DNA is that her viral load was not able to be quantified using group M specific assay or even a generic HIV test. Researchers thought the woman had type O because that would make the most logical sense given that she is from Cameroon, but when they used group O specific primers, they didn’t see any amplification. They were finally able to prove that this was a totally new strain of HIV when they performed a nonspecific RT-PCR which was able to amplify and viral load. Because the PCR was non-specific, meaning it had no primers specific to a type of HIV, the sequence was able to be amplified and then sequenced which gave rise to the RBF168 strain.

In the 1980s, the incidence of acquired immunodeficiency (AIDS) cases caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) rose to epidemic proportions in the US LGBT community predominantly due to their manifestation as Kaposi’s Sarcoma (KS), a viral mediated cancer (Haverkos & Curran, 1982). A major outcome out of the research on HIV-AIDS is the finding that the virus caused massive systemic immune suppression in the infected individuals, which in turn caused the patients to succumb to either opportunistic infections such as KS (Haverkos & Curran, 1982). However, HIV-induced KS also highlighted the dominant role of the human immune system to seek and destroy any cancer that could have been formed otherwise. It also implicated that there

Something that I have come to learn this semester in Core 7, between the books and lectures, is terrible the disease of AIDS is in Africa. The disease is taking over a million lives a year. The numbers are sickening to look at. The disease has become, undoubtedly, a huge problem in Africa. Is it possible to put a stop to this terrible disease that is killing Africans by the millions?

Human Immunodeficiency Virus, HIV was first clinically observed in the United States in June 1981 in healthy young gay men, originating in Los Angeles, California. On June 5th 1981, the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), quite quietly, published an article describing five cases of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) in gay men in this region with two of the five already dead. This Morbidity and Morality Weekly Report (MMWR) issued by the CDC is the first reporting of the AIDS outbreak that was soon to follow. Once the report was issued, the CDC received 26b reports of similar cases of this pneumonia along with Kaposi’s Sarcoma (KS), a rare skin cancer, among the same demographic in New York and California. Because the disease was limited to the gay male population, and little was known about it besides the fact that it targeted the immune system, it was called GRID among the media standing for Gay- Related Immune Deficiency. By years end, 270 cases of severe immune deficiency in gay males were reported with 121 already reported dead. In 1982, the term AIDS, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome was first used by the CDC along with reporting a case definition to medical professionals and the public.a In the few years to follow, the CDC determined the other routes of HIV infection and transmission following discovery in infants and women and the World Heath Organization (WHO) got involved in the epidemic. By 1985, at least one case of HIV virus had been

The Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is responsible for Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and attacks the T-4 lymphocytes, which are a fundamental part of the immune system of man. As a result, reduces the responsiveness of the organism to cope with opportunistic infections caused by viruses, bacteria, protozoa, fungi and other microorganisms. At the moment in which the AIDS virus is spreading with frightening speed and very dangerous and that there is a collective concern about AIDS, we must cling to developing our greatest means of defense known so far, which is information. Although AIDS is deadly, it can be prevented, and in that sense we all have an obligation to be met by seeking and disseminating information. This

HIV is the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS. A member of a group of viruses called retroviruses, HIV infects human cells and uses the energy and nutrients provided by those cells to grow and reproduce. AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) is a disease in which the body's immune system breaks down and is unable to fight off certain infections, known as "opportunistic infections," and other illnesses that take advantage of a weakened immune system. When a person is infected with HIV, the virus enters the body and lives and multiplies primarily in the white blood cells. These are the immune cells that normally protect us from disease.

HIV, or the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, is a virus which damages and kills cells of the immune system. It attacks the T-cells, key cells of the immune system, and uses them to make copies of itself. After being infected with the virus it progressively interferes and eventually destroys the immune system's ability to fight the anti-genes. HIV may develop into the syndrome AIDS, the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. HIV is an STD - a sexually transmitted disease - and therefore most commonly it is spread through sexual contact, and the virus mainly enters the body through the penis, mouth, lining of the vagina or vulva during sexual activity. HIV can also be spread through sharing syringes or needles with someone who is infected with the