The History of AIDS and HIV

The period from the 1960s until the 1980s is one that many would define as the second sexual revolution. Different kinds of relationships and alternative forms of sexuality became increasingly accepted. Then, in the 1980s, the AIDS crisis gained national attention and the perception of sexuality changed dramatically. People became less liberal about sex as they tried to protect themselves from the disease. Because HIV had not garnered much attention in the media before the 1980s, scientists had not really focused on finding a treatment. HIV, which stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus, is a virus which weakens the immune system of its host by reproducing in the host’s immune cells. Unlike most viruses, the human body cannot clear HIV out

Throughout the Age of AIDS film many topics that were related to AIDS were brought up that I did not know anything about before. I did not know that there could so many strings attached to a disease and have such an influence in people’s lives whether it was negative or positive.

In the documentary “The Age of AIDS,” FRONTLINE examines the outbreak of AIDS since its first diagnosed case in 1981. The film investigates different medical, political and social environments under AIDS pandemic in the US and worldwide. The film not only focuses on the scientific research and progress in treating the disease, it also looks at the social stigma, government strategies and public campaigns around different countries.

The AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, consisted entirely of deaths, illnesses and most of all fear, changing the way society viewed gay men. Being that it was only happening to homosexuals and everyone became super homophobic and believed that the disease was a cause of being gay until it started happening to women too. This affected the entire medical metaphysics in society on what is considered safe methods of having sex and health precautions as well. Before the 1980s hit HIV was thought to originate form Kinshasa which is in Congo. In the 1920 HIV crossed between chimpanzees to humans on the Democratic Republic of humans.(Avert 1). AIDS is caused by HIV and is the last stage of HIV and can lead to death. It attacks every single

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.

In 1920 a disease would enter the world in change lives of many people around the world. The most powerful scientists and researchers tired to find answers regarding the strange disease but unfortunately they will spend years with unanswered questions. In this research paper, I decided to look back and discuss evidence about the origin of HIV, and find out where, how, and when the disease first began to cause illness in humans. However, this paper will mainly focus on how HIV impacts the community worldwide.

AIDS, the disease that's killed 35 million people since the 1970’s and 70 million people to this day are currently living with this disease as it affects their life on a daily basis.

The beginning of the AIDS epidemic started in 1981 when the first case of an unknown disease was publically announced. Since its publication the human immunodeficiency virus and its autoimmune deficiency syndrome have sparked many concerns, medically, ethically, and socially. The following documentary and films expressed awareness to the public, they are:

The Human evolution would not have been complete without science, life forms, cars, fantasy, skydiving or the niches microorganisms call home would still be a mystery, Infection and diseases would not be easy to diagnose, and research work will neither improve until man decided to take a stand and make a change. Where and how would a Disease with so much Power shut down our immune system and leave us like walking corpse, this kind of Disease was either sent down as a spell or from the hands of unclean people this would be questions that would basically cause a whole community to drink hot tea in the dead of the night from roots and shrubs to cure an infected person of a disease undiagnosed as Hiv but with fevers symptoms

HIV originated in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo around 1920, when HIV crossed species from chimpanzees to humans. HIV stands for the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, if you are infected with HIV, your body will try to fight the infection with special molecules called “antibodies.” Being HIV-positive is not the same as having AIDS, stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome: Acquired means you can get infected with it; Immune Deficiency means a weakness in the body’s system that fights diseases; Syndrome means a group of health problems that make up a disease. You don’t just “get” AIDS, you may be infected

In the 1980’s there was a lot of reports that were emerging that a small number of men were contracting AIDS when the first case was reported in the United States, the number of deaths of people who had AIDS increased rapidly during the 1980’s, it was among men who had sex men and the majority was among racial minorities and it also increased in women who were heterosexual. Male to male sex was most common to contract AIDS and then it followed by injection of drug use, then heterosexual contact.

Although many people see this book as a great modern interpretation of the AIDS evolution, I found it difficult to be fully engaged with the immense amount of scientific information and terms. Despite the fact I do not have a positive opinion of the book, Pepin’s extensive knowledge and research is evident and bolsters his claims and his epidemiology. Pepin beings the book with the origins of AIDS, debunking the popular claims which spread throughout the United States. Secondly, Pepin introduces the way the AIDS epidemic spread and then completely devastated the Central African population. Afterwards, Pepin reveals how AIDS spread, thus contradicting the knowledge the general population of America has known since the 1980’s. After reading all of this, I felt increasingly more annoyed with how the entire AIDS epidemic has been handled. The information on how the spread of AIDS truly occurred is not widely diffused throughout America, so the notion of it being predominantly gay related is still well-known. Jacques Pepin does an astounding job with disclosing the information of the AIDS epidemic, but the information remained difficult to read due to the dry and immense amount of scientific verbiage.

The Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) do not seem to be a major topic of discussion in the World today. Especially within the United States, HIV and AIDS are not conversed about as openly as perhaps it was in the past two decades. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) at the end of 2010 there were approximately 1.1 million people living in the United States with the HIV virus. Of those 1.1 million people, about 16% did not even know they were infected (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2010). Each year there are approximately 50,000 new HIV infections within the United States (CDC, 2010). Within the 50,000 new cases of HIV infection, the elderly population is the fastest growing segment within the United States (Sankar, Nevedal, Neufedl, Berry, & Luborsky, 2011, p.2). By 2015, adults who are ages 50 and older will make up approximately 50% of all HIV/AIDS cases in the United States (Effros, Fletcher, Gebo, Courtney, Halter, Hazzard, & High, 2008, p. 542). With the increasing number of HIV/AIDS infections, the demand for prescription drug cocktails has increased. Half of the population diagnosed with HIV/AIDS does not receive regular health care (CDC, 2010). Due to this there are a huge economic impact on the U.S. When it comes to the cost of medication and treatment, many patients are not able to afford the inflated prices, especially the elderly

AIDS was a global disaster that brought a lot of confusion, not only among the victims who had contracted it, but also among the major stakeholders in the healthcare sector. While the CDC was busy looking for a possible cure, the government and other sectors remained tongue-tied, since there was hardly anything that could be done to save the lives at that moment. This situation was very chaotic, and created anxiety among the patients. The majority of the victims were the gay males in the United States. Since it was only noticed among them, there were numerous stereotypes that cropped regarding the population which was potentially targeted by the disease. As seen in the documentary How to Survive a Plague, there were many issues cut across

Uganda used to be one of the most prevalent cases of HIV with around 18.5% being infected in 1992 to its lowest rate of 6.4% in 2005 . Even though the HIV rate is increasing at certain rates amongst adults Uganda has done a good job of keeping the HIV prevalence at a generalized rate. This stems from Uganda recovering from numerous political strife and a civil war which left many orphaned and dead. Now that Uganda is regaining its political stability, it has turned its attention to the HIV problem in the country with the president of Uganda creating a commitment program designed to combat HIV, noting its deadliness. Through government and international organizations efforts, the prevalence of HIV total has only lead up to 7.4% of the total population. This results in around 1.4 million Ugandan’s infected with HIV/AIDs with around 190,000 children being infected as well . But although most Ugandan’s have equal access to HIV testing and counselling there are a certain most-at-risk population group that has a high prevalence of HIV. They are the sex industry and homosexuals. Through the resources of the Global Fund, this proposal aims to answer that question of why HIV is so prevalent amongst sex workers and homosexuals by looking at the recent spread of the HIV/AIDs virus and to go further and