Introduction . In The Early 2020’S An Oral Medication Was

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.

There is some good news in the fight against HIV. Between 2005 and 2014 new diagnosis of HIV have fallen by 19% nationwide (CDC, 2017). Those living with HIV are now living longer, healthier lives and have the opportunity to

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/AIDS is a pandemic problem affecting global health. At the end of 2015, 36.7 million people were living with HIV/AIDS globally. The rate of incidence is more prevalent in Sub-Saharan Africa with almost 1 in every 24 adults living with HIV/AIDS. In the united states, HIV/AIDS is a diversified health problem affecting all sexes, ages and races and involving the transmission of multiple risk behavior. However, with the introduction of various prevention programs and antiretroviral drugs, the incidence of HIV/AIDS has reduced.

HIV is a sexually transmitted disease that attacks the body’s immune system by diminishing CD4 cells that help prevent and fight illnesses. HIV is a virus, more specifically a retrovirus that transcribes its RNA into the host cell’s DNA, and is spread by a transfer in bodily fluids namely drug injection and condomless sex. As the disease progresses into acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), the virus continues eliminating CD4 cells until the immune system becomes virtually ineffective [5]. Scientists first identified HIV in 1985 in response to the AIDS crisis plaguing the United States [6]. With no cure yet available, those affected with HIV must rely on antiretroviral drug therapy to decrease their chances of developing AIDS [7].

If you look at how everything has developed since AIDS was first regarded as s major threat to public health in the beginning of the 1980’s it could be said that a lot of progress has been made. Not in a way where infected individuals around the world get the treatment they need or the developing countries get completely the support necessary, but today the world is closer to that goal than years before. This is important to outline because people tend to forget the progress been made, as they are only searching for a certain ending or result. The final solution to the dilemma between distribution of drugs to all people in need and the costly and continuous research required to find a cure, is not in reach [3].

HIV has evolved in new varieties over the last dozen years. The virus is constantly changing due to natural selection and the environment of the patient's body. Inside the body, HIV replicates and every time it reproduces, random genetic copying mistakes mutations result in slightly different varieties of the virus going into the bloodstream. Some of these varieties will have traits that will make them resistant to certain drugs. Natural selection favors the drug resistant forms, causing them to survive and reproduce while causing medication to not work. It was discovered in 1970, that a patient suffering with HIV whose medication did not work, by going off the drugs made his virus population soon change from being resistant to every drug to then being susceptible. This was caused by the environment change in the body when stopping the medication. The non-resistant wild-type came back and started to replicate and soon outnumbered the drug-resistant strains. This resulted in a new treatment used today. If you take a patient that is resistant to medication, off the drugs for a certain amount of time and the virus reverts to the non-resistance wild-type, then hit it hard with a combination of drugs.

HIV is an epidemic that is present worldwide, the disease is concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa for the most part. In context, of the estimated thirty-four million cases of HIV in 2008, twenty-two to twenty-three cases were in sub-Saharan Africa. On the contrary, 1.4 million people are infected with HIV in North America. (Sigall K. Bell, MD, 2011, p. 38). Further, the sum of global infections approximately two million are under fifteen of age. Approximately 50,000 cases a year are in the United States due to the lack of prevention, which then leads to overall prevention. Potential causes of the spreading of HIV are non-effective educational messages along with the high-risk sexual behavior. Also, this just calls for increasing chances of acquiring

Although HIV is no longer the automatic death sentence it was in the 80’s, it remains a thorn even in our modern societies. For instance, HIV treatment is exponentially expensive, and can only be afforded by residents in developed countries. In fact, most third world nations are still in the 80’s as far as HIV treatment technology is concerned. Fatality rates particularly in Africa are astronomical to say the least (Rensburg 267). With prices, for

HIV/AIDs is a huge epidemic still plaguing society today. The lack of knowledge and technical advances has caused an increasing number of cases. It has made its way around the world since the 1940s, causing countries to join together in the fight against AIDs. With all the campaigning that has been done the numbers of cases continue to rise. Countries have separated the disease into three patterns to make it easier to distinguish the effects that AIDs has on different regions of the world. As well as what subtypes sprout from what areas. HIV/AIDs can be spread in many different ways. The future is still uncertain for the victims whom lives have been dramatically changed by this deadly disease.

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is a chronic illness, however, for those with access to health care and treatment, it is a very manageable condition. Although it is no longer considered a death sentence in developed countries, it is still a highly stigmatized illness. The public may no longer perceive HIV as the plague it once was, yet there has been no decline in the number of new infections per year in the past decade in the United States (Catalan et al., 2000). Today, people are living longer with HIV due to the development of combination antiretroviral drug therapies (ART). ART has provided significant progress in treatment (Linsk et al., 2002). Treatment accessibility and medication adherence are crucial in order to continue manage the disease on both the individual and public level.

Despite advances in screening and treatment for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) over the last 30 years, HIV remains a significant global issue (World Health Organization [WHO], 2015; Yagoda & Moore, 2016). The United States (US) experienced a brief decline in new HIV cases, but total HIV incidence has failed to decrease meaningfully in the past 25 years (Yagoda &Moore, 2016). According to the US Department of Health and Human Services (USDHHS) (2015), there are approximately 56,000 new cases of HIV per year and that number has been holding steady over the last decade. Current strategies to prevent HIV transmission include antiretroviral treatment (ART) for HIV-infected people, voluntary medical male circumcisions, HIV testing, harm reduction, and behavioral risk reduction (Baeten & Heffron, 2014).

In this wonderful world that we subsist in it has its fluctuating limits where in life an individual can have successes and fame to being unsuccessful. Life is precious, the way one can conserve it and their health is performing certain procedures that help maintain and sustain the human body. In addition, there are different elements that occur to impair a person’s health like physical and mental disorders, bacterial infections, and viral infections. These illnesses can cause minor to major fragments in a person’s life. A key virus that dumbfounds scientist and doctors till this day is the word “HIV”.

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].

A sophisticated research indicates that approximately “50,000 people including men and women in Unites States are diagnosed with HIV every year”. There are countless distinctive strains of the popular disease known to be HIV and therefore t is classified in two types. “Type 1 HIV is most common worldwide but controversy. HIV type 2 is found mostly in Africa, with some cases in India and Europe” (Nordqvist). With the proper level of treatment and care, many people with HIV are capable of living a long and active life.

HIV is a retrovirus that will constantly attack human’s immune system once an individual is infected and will eventually develop to AIDS, often a deadly sexually transmitted disease. Currently, there are different kinds of antiretroviral treatments available for patients who are tested to be HIV positive as well as patients with AIDS. HIV can easily develop resistance to its treatment through mutation each generation, which leads to ineffectiveness in treatment. The only way to continue to fight off HIV is to change treatment that is still available. Patients have to cooperate with experienced doctors by adhering to their professional recommendations, while doctors are responsible