Miami Dade County Communicable Disease

Communicable diseases have always created a host of serious of problems. These diseases cause physical, emotional, and even financial problems in our societies today. Communicable disease is a sickness that is passed on through the transmission of infectious illnesses. People, food, animals or water can pass many infections from humans to humans or animals to humans. Humans can pass infectious diseases to each other from touching or exchanging body fluids. In 1981, the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) marked the official start of the HIV epidemic which became one of the world’s most deadly communicable diseases (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2015). The widespread of the human immunodeficiency virus has affected approximately 1.2 million people in the United States, and roughly 35 million worldwide is living with HIV (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2015).

According to healthypeople.gov/2020, the spread of STIs in a community can be directly attributed to social, economic, and behavioral factors. Such factors may cause serious obstacles to STI prevention due to their influence on social and sexual networks, access to and delivery of care, willingness to seek care, and social norms regarding sexuality. Among certain vulnerable populations, historical experience with segregation and discrimination exacerbates the influence of these factors (Healthy People 2020, n.d.). Peoria County, where my hospital is located has a large population of low socio economic patients, which are at a greater risk of contracting STIs through risky sexual behavior and lower educational awareness of these diseases. In 2013, the rate of Chlamydia in Peoria County was 1.7 times greater than the rate of Chlamydia in the United States with some zip codes within the county being 4.9 times greater than the

The rise in drug injecting usage, unsafe sex, contaminated blood transfusions, homosexuals, premarital sex and prostitution has caused the infection to rapidly spread throughout the population.

Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are a growing problem in American society as well as across the world. These STIs are lowering the life expectancy of people all across the world especially in poor or developing countries. The reasoning behind this is people in those countries often can not afford the treatment necessary for the infections they contract. One example is gonorrhea, a bacterial infection that is sexually transmitted, and is a large problem in societies all across the world. It is estimated by the US public health service that there are “2.6 million cases annually of infection” with gonorrhea in the United States (Yorke, 1978, 51). The pandemic of STIs (in this case gonorrhea) is an interesting yet sad reality to me, which

Gonorrhea, or more commonly known as “the clap”, is an infectious disease that is spread most commonly via sexual intercourse. It is most commonly spread from males to females. Behind chlamydia, gonorrhea is the most reported sexually transmitted disease and is also the second most commonly reported notifiable disease. In 2015, 395,216 new cases of gonorrhea were reported in the United States. This sexually transmitted disease is most common among the African-American population and has higher rates of infection in the southern part of the United States (Nursing).

Without treatment, about 50 per cent of all people living with HIV will develop AIDS within 10 years after infection. Special risk groups were identified by the CDC and include it: users of injecting drug users and their sexual partners, people with a large number of sexual partners, men who have sex with men and their female partners, persons who exchange sex for money or drugs. The highest growth rates occur among injecting drug users, women and infants born to women in high-risk groups. Sex between men may have a transmission speed of up to one in ten, Depending on sexual practices. The rates of transmission among intravenous drug users are high because a contaminated needle can enter directly the HIV in the bloodstream. Sex workers also have a high risk of contracting and transmitting HIV. HIV / AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) is often set in high risk groups before moving on to the population in general. As the transmission mode changes of sex between men and the sharing of needles by intravenous drug users, the rate of HIV among women increases often dramatically, which leads to a greater number of children born with HIV or orphaned by AIDS. It is more likely that it is a widespread epidemic in poor countries, which may lack the infrastructure, money, and large-scale effective political stability for the treatment and prevention of HIV. "It is estimated that 20 to 35 percent of the newborns of infected mothers develop infection by HIV." About 60 percent of AIDS patients are white, 25 percent are black, and 15 percent are Hispanic. "The development of a safe and effective vaccine against HIV is a high priority for the next decade. Other prevention and strategies are crucial to stop the spread of infection by HIV. The majority of people infected with HIV in the United States are not aware that they even have the virus. The efforts of public education about the risks and the precautionary

CDC estimates that 1,218,400 persons aged 13 years and older are living with HIV infection, including 156,300 (12.8%) who are unaware of their infection (CDC, 2014). The overall rate of infection still remains high, this increased rate is also seen in the Asian population. According to the CDC, between 2005 and 2014 the Asian population in the United States grew around 24%, more than three times as fast as the total U.S. population, and within this time period, the number of Asians receiving an HIV diagnosis increased by nearly 70% (CDC, 2014). Although the increase is substantial, Asians still only account for 2% of new HIV diagnoses. Of the HIV incidence, meaning new infection, 86% are men, while 13% are women. Compared to 13% of the people in the United States who are undiagnosed, Asian population is at 21% who are undiagnosed. There are behaviors seen across the spectrum that puts people at risk for contracting and spreading the HIV virus, being undiagnosed is just one of them.

What is a communicable disease? A communicable disease is carried by microorganisms and transmitted through people, animals, surfaces, foods, or air. Therefore, communicable diseases rely on fluid exchange, contaminated substances, or close contact to travel from an infected carrier to a healthy individual. The disease might need a blood exchange via an injection, float along a sneeze in a movie theater, or transmitted through childbirth. Hence, a human-to-human communicable disease could be passed through blood, mucus, uterine fluid, breast milk, semen, saliva, or breath. Examples of communicable diseases include herpes, malaria, mumps, HIV/AIDS, influenza, chicken pox, ringworm, and whooping cough. Governmental health agencies spend a great deal of time and money studying the risk or spread of various contagious diseases in order to identify outbreaks, prevent reoccurrences, or develop treatments. They compile statistics such as incidence, which measures how many new cases are diagnosed per year, and prevalence, which identifies how many cases exist at any one time. According to Anderson (2011), top 10 communicable diseases exist: Common Cold, Gastroenteritis, Strep throat, Pink Eye, Fifth Disease, Gonorrhea, Hepatitis, Whooping Cough, Rotavirus, and HIV/AIDS. With its mysterious origin and mutation rates, HIV/AIDS warrants a closer analysis.

Sexually transmitted infections/diseases (STIs/STDs) have been present in the human populous for centuries. Before modern medicine there was widespread transmission of infections/diseases with very little or no available treatment. Today we have antibiotics and a network of tracking STIs/STDs to help deter their spread. How these STIs/STDs were introduced into the United States, the domain for this work, is a point of debate but they are clearly present. The 2016 Sexually Transmitted Disease Surveillance report from The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states for the third year in a row there was an increase in the reported rates of gonorrhea, chlamydia and syphilis. The media, whether it be newspaper, magazine, or

STDs are both very dangerous and wide spread diseases. In the modern world where the cure for most of the diseases is to be found, some diseases with unknown cure are to be found as well. Among these, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are a serious health problem. STDs are sexually transmitted diseases that are caused by bacteria, viruses, fungus, protozoa and parasites which get transferred during activity between two partners. If a person having a sexually transmittable disease in him or her takes part in coitus with another person, there is a chance the micro organism causing the disease may get transferred in to the partner. This type of diseases are commonly refereed to Sexually Transmitted Diseases or STDs. Some STDs have a cure or a treatment and some don’t have a cure or a treatment. They can be prevented from getting transferred using behavioral modifications but they are usually not recognizable by patients and health care organizations. STDs are capable of being transferred through Oral, Vaginal or Anal sex irrespective to the genders of the partners. Many of the STDs which are infamous and common among the world population are HIV/AIDS (Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Human Immunodeficiency Syndrome), Human Papilloma virus, Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, Herpes, Hepatitis, Syphilis and Ebola. All these diseases have different levels of effects on health of the affected person. Some cause slow and painful death and some show no sign

After having lived there his whole life and working out in the community, it was from his personal experience that he believed that HPV is a major issue due to the increasing amounts of cervical cancer he was finding within his health system. It is essential to determine a way to halt this infection so that other countries in the Caribbean with similar environments can utilize this research as well. While the issue of why HPV is prevalent purely scientifically has been discussed, the reasoning why it hasn’t been for other reasons has not. When tackling a monster as big as a public health issue that destructs on such a large scale, it is important to cover all of the bases for the form of prevention from scientific, medical, social, to even cultural-behavioral data. Jamaica has a severe lack of sexual health education immersed in an even more confused medical stigma creating a behavior towards HPV that is extremely representative of the Caribbean region as a whole with its genetic makeup and public health statistics serving as a median for the rest. This study explores these social, educational, cultural, and behavioral factors and how they influence the high prevalence of HPV in the Caribbean.

Amongst the population, gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men of all races and ethnicities remain to be the most effected by HIV (CDC, 2016). According to more data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as of February 2013, “gay men are sixty times more likely than heterosexual men, and 54 times more likely than all women, to be diagnosed with HIV. Gay men account for 48 percent of the more than one million people living with HIV in the U.S., an estimated 532,000 men” (Andriote 2012). In comparison to heterosexual men, gay and bisexual men are 79 times more likely to be diagnosed with HIV in their lifetime (CDC, 2016). They continue to say that if current HIV diagnosis rates continue, 1 in 6 men who have sex with men (MSM) will be diagnosed with HIV in their lifetime. Heterosexual men face a

“Richard Horton and Pam Das wrote, “The truth is that this pandemic will never be defeated without effective prevention. For the foreseeable future and beyond, prevention efforts that rely on multiple

“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.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic is heavily influenced by both political and social factors. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, gay or bisexual men who have sex with men (MSM) are the most severely affected population in the world. Although, MSM only account for a small fraction of the total U.S. population they are more prone to HIV infections. MSM within ethnic minority groups are at an even greater risk of infection. Individuals who inject drugs are also more prone to infection. Injection drug users have been associated directly or indirectly with approximately one-third of AIDS cases in the