Hiv And Its Effects On Society

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).

As a disease, HIV, or the Human Immunodeficiency Virus is a blood-borne virus that is transmitted from person to person via sexual intercourse, mother to child, or intravenous drug paraphernalia. The virus itself causes, usually over a period of time, Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, or AIDS. AIDS actually targets the immune system and causes an immunosuppression which makes people who have the virus more susceptible to cancers and infections. This is the most unique feature of the HIV/AIDS virus and is the most deadly since its implications are destructive if not properly treated (Moore 51). The significance of this disease is one that began in the 1980’s and initially was thought to be a virus only found within homosexual communities and was even originally called Gay-Related Immunodeficiency Virus. However, in 1981, it was found that the virus was spreading beyond the gay community when Blacks accounted for 25% of the HIV/AIDs population and a trend began where Blacks continued to contract HIV significantly more than

When a chimpanzee has the virus it is called SIV. A chimpanzee can live safely and unharmed with SIV for a lifetime. Unfortunately the transmission and mutation of the virus likely came from the blood into a cut or consumption of the chimpanzee. The virus then would be passed from human to human through blood, sex, and even breast milk. HIV was discovered in West Africa in 1983 and was shown to bring the carriers life to an end within nine to eleven years after contracting the virus.

There are four main groups of HIV strains (M, N O and P), each with a slightly different genetic make-up. This supports the hunter theory because every time SIV passed from a chimpanzee to a human, it would have developed in a slightly different way within the human body, and produced a slightly different strain. This explains why there is more than one strain of HIV-1 The most studied strain of HIV is HIV-1 Group M, which is the strain that has spread throughout the world and is responsible for the vast majority of HIV infections today. (“origin of HIV & AIDS,”

It is believed that the first case of HIV/AIDs was first recorded somewhere in West Africa somewhere in the beginning of the twentieth century. Since then, it has spread across central Africa, undetected for a long time. But the question that has bewildered many, is how HIV spread in the first place. According to “Natural Transfer Theory”, HIV was spread to humans through chimpanzees. “Africans have been killing and eating monkey for at least fifty thousand years” (43). It was common for small African communities to hunt and eat chimpanzees. Chimpanzees were said to have “SIVs, simian immunodeficiency viruses that closely resembles HIV” (41). The virus is said to have spread to humans through these infected chimpanzees. The blood of these chimpanzees could have

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.

To begin with, many scientists found that HIV is related to a similar virus found in chimpanzee after conducting many researched they believe the virus was passed down from monkey hunters to human. Moreover, the first known case of HIV was reported in 1920 in

According to (Avert.org) “In 1999, a strain of SIV (called SIVcpz) was found in a chimpanzee that was almost identical to HIV in humans.The researchers who discovered this connection concluded that it proved chimpanzees were the source of HIV-1, and that the virus had at some point crossed species from chimps to humans”

Half of all new human immunodeficiency virus, also known as HIV infections in the United States and two thirds of all sexually transmitted diseases (STD) occur among young people under the age of 25 (Starkman, Rajani). It’s estimated that by the end of high school, nearly two thirds of American’s youth are sexually active, and one in five has had four or more sexual partners (Starkman, Rajani). Despite these alarming statistics, less than half of all public schools in the United States offer information on how to obtain contraceptives and most schools teach "abstinence only" education (Starkman, Rajani). Even more alarmingly there is little evidence that abstinence only curriculums are successful in encouraging teenagers from delaying

It is proven that the source of the HIV virus was from a type of chimpanzees located in West Africa ("Where Did HIV Come From?"). The chimpanzees carried a virus called simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) which is similar to HIV ("Where Did HIV Come From?"). It is thought that when it was transferred the humans it mutated into HIV ("Where Did HIV Come From?"). The disease was transferred to humans by hunting the chimpanzees and eating the meat off of them ("Where Did HIV Come

This book talks about how recent genetic evidence form new discoveries have traced the birth of AIDS to being rooted in the southeastern forests of Cameroon in Africa, where chimpanzees had a very similar strain of Human Immunodeficiency Virus in their blood. They carried this simian immunodeficiency virus for hundreds of years without creating any major, large-scale outbreak in humans. The birth origin story of HIV may have been happened sometime around 1880 to 1920. TImberg and Halperin discuss that the birth of HIV most likely occurred when a European hunter traveling in

It is believed that HIV originated in Africa in the chimpanzees. Humans then caught it from them. HIV “jumped species.”

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.

“More than 1.2 million americans are living with HIV, including 156,300 who don’t realize it” (Kaplan). The HIV/AIDS epidemic hit a peak in the 2000’s. These diseases attack the immune system making them incapable of fighting off diseases. Specifically, HIV,human immunodeficiency virus, attacks the immune system, weakening it, and slowly making it produce more HIV-cells. AIDS,acquired immune deficiency syndrome, then takes over and the immune system is so weak that it no longer has the ability to fight the infectious cells. These diseases have no cure and can only be slowed by treatment. HIV/AIDS spreads by bodily fluids such as sexual activities, sharing needles, and accidents that include blood. Testing and prevention of HIV/AIDS should have more emphasis than treatment because it would allow people to be more cautious, treatment still allows HIV/AIDS to spread, and it would stop the contraction of diseases.

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a lentivirus (a member of the retrovirus family) that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS),[1][2] a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive. Infection with HIV occurs by the transfer of