Public Health Campaign For Fight Hiv / Aids

When it came to differing views between western beliefs and the native point of view, one of the bigger problems was the conflict about contraception and stopping the spread of HIV and AIDS. Southern Africa, were the Dobe Ju’/hoansi subside, has one of the highest rates of HIV/AIDS in the world. “[T] he world U/N. figures for June 2000 show a seropositive rate among adults of 19.54 percent in Namibia, 19.94 percent in South Africa, and a staggering 35.8 percent in Botswana (Lee 2003: 190).” Because of the epidemic the life expectancy in the area has also drastically dropped. Western medical professionals have made clear to most communities that condoms are the most effective protection from HIV/AIDs. Because of this many western clinics and organizations in Africa distribute condoms to the local people. Regardless of the

HIV/AIDS has been responsible for one of the worst epidemics in history. In her book “The Invisible Cure” Helen Epstein details why Africa in particular was so devastated by the disease, which countries failed and which succeeded in the struggle to contain the virus, and why this happened. Epstein highlights a particular phenomenon, that first took place in Uganda, but which can be translated to many countries and situations, and which she calls “the invisible cure.”

When visiting South Africa, I was intrigued at the beauty of the country, but was also curious as to how the country was dealing with one of Africa’s largest problems, AIDS/HIV. With the AIDS epidemic having started over 25 years ago, the disease continues to affect the population of Africa, especially South Africa, the nation with 5.6 million people living with HIV, the most in the world. Much of South Africa’s history of struggle with the virus is attributed to misinformation given by Thabo Mbeki, a former president, who “questioned the link between HIV and AIDS” and his former health minister who misled the nation with ideas that the virus could be treated with “beets and

Did you know “AIDS is the leading cause of death in Africa” (Quinn, online). Twenty percent of Africa’s population has died from AIDS. Poverty is a big problem in Africa. Men have been forced to become migrant workers in urban areas. And antiretroviral treatment at this time is not available to African people. AIDS is a big problem in Africa today that is now requiring help from the world.

Experts agree that understanding these statistics can help to make the claim that the HIV virus is a heterogeneous one; significantly affecting certain populations more than others. This is especially true for African Americans (Sorvillo 930). However, mere statistical evidence is not enough to effectively declare this a health inequity. Further research into the virus amongst the population must be explored.

Popular culture and mainstream media offer misleading and erroneous explanations for drastic dissimilar impact of HIV/AIDS in minority groups. One

In The Invisible Cure, Helen Epstein talks about why HIV/AIDS rate is so high in Africa compared to the rest of the world. Through the book, she gives us an account of the disease and the struggles that many health experts and ordinary Africans went through to understand this disease, and how different African countries approached the same problem differently. Through this paper, I will first address the different ways Uganda and Southern African countries, South Africa and Botswana in particular, dealt with this epidemic, and then explain how we can use what we have learned from these African countries to control outbreaks of communicable disease elsewhere around the world.

I enjoyed week four’s readings because they looked at the historical context leading up to what we today recognize as ignorant discrimination against individuals with HIV/AIDS. What stood out most to me, particularly in the Kiruthu et al article, was how the way we in the West centered (and continues to centre) ourselves affects the way we perceive the world. In the Smith and Whiteside article, the authors illustrated a widespread belief that too much money was going toward combating HIV/AIDS and not to other – in their words – more important medical, social, and economic issues that took precedence over the dwindling incidence of AIDS. They said this, the authors point out, as a mere 6% of money spent globally

Africa has a history of facing many challenges, including starvation, poverty, Ebola and AIDS. AIDS, however, has become Africa’s biggest hurdle. Botswana, located in Southern Africa, has been hit the hardest by the AIDS virus with over 23% of its population contracting AIDS. In order to help fix the AIDS epidemic in Botswana, multiple things need to be reviewed, such as understanding how AIDS spread throughout Botswana, where the region currently stands on the AIDS virus, and the three solutions on how to prevent the rise in the spreading of the virus within the area. According to the website Avert, studies have shown that the most effective ways to help stop the spread of AIDS includes testing centers, intervention centers, and the distribution of more protective measures.

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.

“Since the beginning of the AIDS pandemic, 1.7 million Americans have been infected with HIV and more than six hundred and fifty thousand have died of AIDS.” (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). AIDS is a serious disease that needs to be treated from an early stage so that it helps long-term health from deteriorating. There are many scientists that have tried to form a vaccine for AIDS to help people around the world that suffer with it. Helen Epstein worked as a scientist in Africa in search of an AIDS vaccine. “AIDS INC” is a chapter from her book The Invisible Cure where Epstein observes different prevention programs in Africa. Its hard for the individuals in Africa to trust scientists coming from other countries and talk openly with them and that contributes toward social cohesion. Despite the fact that social cohesion has many different definitions Epstein focuses on talking openly with

Another thing that’s causing more African American woman to have a higher percentage infected than any other race is because, many don’t date or have sexual partners outside of the African American race. There are more men in the African American race than any other race infected with HIV/AIDS. So therefore infecting the African American woman.

HIV is the virus that causes Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, commonly known as AIDS. HIV/AIDS has become one of the most destructive global pandemics in history. In 1990, the World Health Organization estimated that over one million people were living with AIDS, and in less than ten years, HIV had exploded worldwide (Perlin & Cohen). Johanna Tayloe Crane, a medical anthropologist, dedicated her career to studying the way political and economic inequalities influence how HIV/AIDS is researched and treated for in Africa. Crane complied over ten years of ethnographic research to study a HIV research partnership between a US university and Ugandan universities and clinics. Her book, Scrambling for Africa: AIDS, Expertise, and the Rise of American Global Health Science, unpacks both the American and Ugandan researcher’s and clinicians’ perspectives about the research partnership and critiques the U.S. response to the AIDS epidemic in Africa. Her findings reveal the paradox of health institutions and their global health research partnerships benefit from the inequalities they are trying to readdress. These global, economic, and scientific inequalities have allowed Global Health Science research partnerships to establish their own authority over Africa’s HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the region of the world that is most affected by HIV/AIDS. The United Nations reports that an estimated 25.4 million people are living with HIV and that approximately 3.1 million new infections occurred in 2004. To put these figures in context, more than 60 percent of the people living with the infection reside in Africa. Even these staggering figures do not quite capture the true extent and impact that this disease causes on the continent. In 1998, about 200,000 Africans died as a result of various wars taking place on the continent. In that same year, more than 2 million succumbed to HIV/AIDS (Botchwey, 2000).

HIV is a virus that is spread almost all over the world. Although in some places health care isn’t as developed and therefore it spreads more in those regions. Sub-Saharan Africa holds more than 70%, 25 million, of all HIV positive people in the world. Second highest is Eastern Europe together with Central Asia with 1.3 million. It is spread over most of the world, including Asia and the Pacific, the Caribbean, Central and South America, North Africa and the Middle East and Western and Central Europe (“The Regional Picture”).