Problem And Extent Of Hiv / Aids

There are an immense amount of problems in Africa caused by the AIDS disease. Healthcare providers are available and located all over Africa. Even though they are available, they have only “enough medicine for long-term survival available for 30,000 Africans” (Copson, 3).

According to the Federal HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Office (FHAPCO 2012:1) occurrence of the Human Immune deficiency Virus (HIV) pandemic is one of the leading public health problems the world has ever realized in current history. In the past thirty years HIV has spread fast and affected entire segments of people: child, young and adult people, men and women, and the rich and the poor.

An enabling factor of donating blood is making a difference in someone life or multiple lives which changes some people attitudes of the quality of life. The satisfaction of knowing the good deed of donating can save lives of random people in need and can also change a person’s perspective of life. Also, gaining knowledge about what is needed in order to donate blood as well as finding out ones blood type is essential. The more blood that is donated results in the more lives that can be

On top of those odds, there is an extraordinarily slim chance of contracting HIV from a blood transfusion on its own. Using the disturbed logic of the FDA’s new referral, a man should know the absolute outcome of an HIV test after a year, when in reality a test can come back to a patient in less than a day. Even if a patient heeds a doctors recommendation of waiting three months to allow possible antibodies to form, that leave nine months where a man could be clear to donate; without any reasoning however, he still can not. After a man has been cleared with an HIV exam, their is no scientific reason as to why he is not able to donate blood, making this a more discriminatory issue.

“Blood Safety in the Age of AIDS” reflects upon the history of blood transfusions, the advancement in performing clean (disease-free) transfusions, and, specifically, the appearance of and efforts to prevent the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) virus in blood donations. The AIDS epidemic hitting the blood banks is not only examined as an urgent problem in its own right, but also as a warning to both doctors and patients who regularly or spontaneously require blood transfusions. This warning indicates that the idea of new diseases and epidemics are still a possibility despite medical and conditional advances through history and that additional measures should be researched in the effort to make blood transfusions less risky.

Although the first wave of HIV infections occurred in 1988 amongst injecting drug users, it was during 1989 – 1990 that prompted the “awakening of HIV/AIDS.” The National Advisory Committee on AIDS developed a surveillance of sentinel groups, which included sex workers, male patients with sexually transmitted infections, and blood donors. This surveillance revealed the HIV virus being transmitted rapidly through sex. From 1989-1990, the prevalence of direct sex workers infected with the virus tripled from 3.5% to 9.3%. One year later, this prevalence increased to 21.6%. During the same period, the proportion of male conscripts, aged 21, infected with HIV during testing for entry to the army rose six fold from 0.5% in 1989 to 3% in 1991. This increase was associated with the growing popularity of visiting sex establishments among young men.

In today’s world, it often seems like there are more issues to tackle than people have the capacity to handle. There is the global warming, poverty, hunger, wars, political conflicts, refugee conflicts, etcetera. Though all of these can seem daunting and hard to combat, none of them can be accomplished if the world’s population is not healthy. If people do not have the physical strength to think of new and innovative ways to take on these issues, then no progress will be made on any of them. As a result, global health should be prioritized as the most pressing issue the world is facing today. Until people are healthy, they cannot be educated, hope to reduce poverty, or do anything. One factor of global health that needs to be paid more attention is HIV/AIDS because though it is incurable, it can be prevented from killing millions.

The AIDS epidemic in late 80 's was a huge disaster for blood transfusion where patients contracted AIDS. Furthermore, surveillance programs were developed to monitor infections transmitted by blood, primarily Hepatitis and HIV. Regardless of advances technology recently, blood transfusions are not risk free and are expensive - one unit can cost $522-1183. Then, they must not be ordered routinely. Transfusions are under approved practices, such as, red blood cell transfusions are ordered to treat anemia, red blood cells and cryoprecipitate transfusions are commonly given to trauma patients or critically ill. Today, the most number of transfusion infections is caused by hepatitis B causing liver infections. The risk of Hepatitis B and C as well as HIV requires rigorous screening especially in underdeveloped counties, for instance Nigeria.

The residual risk for HIV is estimated at less than 1 in 8 million units at Canadian Blood Services (Goldman et. al, 2014). The risk is so low that it can only be estimated after all safeguard measures have been followed (Billick et. al, 2015). While the deferral policy puts stigma against MSM, it may have helped lessen the risk of BT contamination and helped promote safety among blood recipients through a precautionary approach.

Worldwide, HIV/AIDS poses an enormous challenge on the survival of mankind. HIV is the leading cause of mortality among women of reproductive age worldwide and is a major contributor to maternal, infant and child morbidity and mortality (1). 33.4 million People are estimated to be living with HIV worldwide; 15.7 million are women and 2 million are children younger than 15 years of age (1). With an adult prevalence of 5.2% in 2008, sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has been the most severely HIV stricken region, accounting for 71% of all new infections in adults and children, and about 90% of new infections among children worldwide (2). In 2009 the prevalence of HIV in Ethiopia was estimated at 2.3% with differentials: urban (7.7%), rural (0.9%), male (1.8%), and female (2.8%)(3). The number of people living with HIV/AIDS was 1,116,216 of which 84,189 were pregnant women, 72,945 were children under 15years and annual HIV positive births were 14,140(3). In the absence of any intervention of mother to child transmission of HIV(i.e. exclusive breast feeding and use of antiretroviral drugs), the risk of a baby acquiring the virus from an infected mother ranges from 15% to 25% in industrialized countries, and 25% to 35% in developing countries. HIV transmission rate and time of transmission is estimated to be 5% to 10% during pregnancy, 10% to 15% during delivery, and 5% to 20% during breast feeding (4-5). In 2009, 53% of HIV-infected pregnant women worldwide received antiretroviral (ARV)

Blood transfusion is a crucial part of the health care system all around the world and contributes to saving lives of millions in both routine and emergency settings. With the advancements in Clinical Medicine, the need for this life-saving fluid is rising. The annual blood collection across the world is over 88 million units of blood for a world population of 6,910 million, requiring 150 million units (1). The availability of safe blood is dependent on the human blood volunteers. Volunteer blood donation (VBD) is, in fact, believed to be the cornerstone of the safe blood transfusion services (BTS) (2). However, there is a huge disparity regarding the collection of blood via donation between high income and low-income countries. According

Blood transfusion is a crucial part of health care systems all around the world and contributes to saving lives of millions in both routine and emergency settings. With the advancements in Clinical Medicine, the need for this life-saving fluid is rising. The annual blood collection across the world is over 88 million units of blood for a world population of 6,910 million requiring 150 million units (1). The availability of safe blood is dependent on the human blood volunteers. While volunteer blood donation (VBD) is believed to be the cornerstone of the safe blood transfusion services (BTS) (2). There is a huge disparity regarding the collection of blood via donation between high income and low-income countries. According to WHO,

We all need blood to survive, but for sick children, accident victims and cancer patients just to name a few – a shortage of donated blood means the difference between life and death to them.

Human blood is not an ordinary commodity because it cannot be substituted and its need will always exist. Blood and blood products are also perishable, which complicates things even further. Shortages lead to high costs for society and outdates on the other hand are not commonly accepted either, since blood donors are a scarce asset of society and donors must respect a certain time period between two donations, depending on the type of donation.

Communicable disease are massively important in global burden of disease and in “2001 accounted for about 40 percent of the disease burden in low and middle class income countries. Every year, HIV/AIDS kills about 1.8 million, TB kill about 1.7 million and malaria kills 1 million especially among children in poor countries like sub Saharan Africa and south Asia. These diseases “disproportionally’’ affect the poor. The better off people or families have the awareness and the income to protect themselves from the spread of disease. (S. Richard 2012).