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Hiv And Human Immunodeficiency Virus

Decent Essays

Yasaswi Vengalasetti
10 March 2013
UWP 104F
Theresa Walsh
Vaginal Virus Pandemonium
HIV, Human Immunodeficiency virus first became known to us in the early 1980s. HIV dominated the news front as its societal repercussions were enormous. It compromised ones immune system and jeopardized an individual’s ability to have relationships. It was a physically and socially debilitating disease, and getting infected meant becoming ostracized and having a reduced life expectancy. In the early years of the epidemic, AIDS was unfamiliar. No one was quite sure of what is was, and it was feared, without any available treatment and often lead to death. The fact that it was prevalent among the gay communities only further stimulated social stigma against …show more content…

In fact roughly 19 million of these AIDS patients do not even know they are living with this sentence according to a UNAIDS report.
More than 95% of HIV infections are in developing countries, two-thirds of them in sub-Saharan Africa, where over 28 million people are living with HIV. While infection rates are lower in Asia and the Pacific, where over 7 million are infected, there is a risk that localized epidemics involving mainly high-risk groups could spark off major epidemics in some of the world’s most populous countries.
The disease continues to have a major and disproportionate impact on social and economic development. Poverty rises in developing countries as households lose one or more breadwinners to AIDS, whereas industrialized nations like the United States see its rates leveling off and dropping.
In light of its prevalence, researchers have not stopped searching for a cure for AIDS. Many labs have renewed their efforts to understand and eradicate this disease and have refocused to developing countries. Many researchers have continued to advance our understanding of the biology of the disease. However, some researchers have now focused on developing products that will limit the spread of this disease. These products range from a variety of contraception, physical and chemical, with an emphasis of solutions that are cost effective, mass producible and appropriate for third world nations.
A particular solution of interest is a vaginal microbicide. It

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