The Infection and Prevalence of HIV among Adults and Adolescents in the United States
Kuljit Kaur Sidhu
I.D. #16822472
Summer Session I 2015
Professor Jaime Allgood
I. The Public Health Problem
The United States is facing a flourishing epidemic of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infections which is rapidly progressing and contributing to the rising mortality rates. HIV is an infection that is caused when a virus attacks the immune system which is the body’s natural defense system and without a strong immune system, an individual’s body is too weak to fight off infections. The strongest component of the immune system to fight off infectious diseases is white blood cells. HIV infects and destroys
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Individuals with HIV may not notice and/or realize their symptoms because they may not appear for up to 10 years (CDC, 2013). The symptoms include rapid weight loss, recurring fever and/or profuse night sweats, extreme and unexplained tiredness, prolonged swelling of the lymph glands in the armpits, groin, or neck, and/or diarrhea that lasts for more than a week.
Within the United States, over 1.2 million people are living with HIV infection and about 13% of them are unaware of their infection. Additionally, it is estimated that 50,000 new HIV infections are developing each year (CDC,2013). In the year 2013, about 47,352 people were newly diagnosed with HIV infections and overall 1,194,039 have been diagnosed with AIDS (CDC, 2013). Unfortunately in the year 2012, about 13,712 people with AIDS and about 670,000 people in the United States have died overall because they were unaware of their infection which caused them to develop AIDS, the untreatable disease (CDC, 2012). In regards to a concentrated population, adolescents/adults (age 13 years and over), carry the highest risk for HIV infections (Campsmith,2010) . In the year 2006, about 1,106,400 adolescents/adults were diagnosed and living with HIV in the United States and about 232,700 individuals who were unaware of their infection and went undiagnosed
According to estimates and numbers provided by the CDC, about one and a half million people 13 years of age and younger is HIV positive. Demographics also show that almost 20% of people who are infected do not know they have the virus. The CDC estimates that now every year, there are about 50,000 new cases diagnosed (2013). At risk groups include gay men, bisexual people, and African Americans (CDC, 2013). Young African American males are at greatest risk for contracting HIV among various ethnicities and races (CDC, 2013).
The term Human Immunodeficiency Virus is commonly known as (HIV), which is a virus that attacks the immune system of humans by destroying the amount of CD4 cells in their bodies. Without CD4 the human body is unable to fight against diseases, which can lead to Acquired Immune deficiency syndrome known as AIDS for short. The first case of the HIV/AIDS virus in the U.S. occurred in the early 1980’s. The first spark of the virus was found in San Francisco with couple of homosexual Caucasian American males. Today African Americans account for the largest proportion of HIV and AIDS in this country, represent approximately 13% of the U.S. population, but accounted for an estimated 44% of new HIV infections in 2010(the last year a study was
In 2015, specifically in LA downtown, I met Sara who is an African American girl who was suffering from HIV virus. She told me her sadly story when she was having sexual things with random people just because of having money. She didn’t have any knowledge about this virus. So, because of that, she got the HIV virus, and she thanked god that she treated so long to be clean. So, some people in this world don’t know what the AIDS means. So, the AIDS is a dangerous virus that attack cells human’s immune system, and if the people who didn’t treat themselves in the hospital, they probably are going to die. It is dangerous because this virus happens when the human’s immune system badly damaged and it becomes impressible to opportunistic infections. When the number of the human CD4 cells decrease below 200 cells per cubic millimeter of blood, it is considered to have progressed to AIDS. People who have the AIDS virus need medical treatment to prevent death. Overall, it takes time to treat around one year, and without treatment it is typically survive about three years (AIDS.gov). According to Tony L. Whitehead that between June 1981 and October 1995 in United states that U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention got report of 501, 310 cases of AIDS. In addition, there were sixty-two percent of groups who have died, and although African American was represent only 12 percent of the United States, African American was represent 34 percent among them. In only five years, the
In the United States, HIV (infection) has changed remarkably over the past 30 years. According to CDC.gov “At the end of 2013, 498,400 African Americans were living with HIV (40% of everyone living with HIV in the US), and 1 in 8 did not know they were infected.” More than 44,000 people were diagnosed with HIV in 2014. HIV is currently a disease of greater demographic diversity, affecting all ages, sexes, race and involves various transmission risk behaviors. At least 50,000 new HIV infections will continue to be added each year, however, one-fifth of persons with new infections may not know they are infected, and a substantial proportion of those who know they are infected are not engaged in HIV care. It is tragic that there are a huge number
Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is a serious condition in our society. If left untreated, HIV can progress to Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) (CDC, 2016a). Once a person is infected with HIV, it can never be completely removed from the body, meaning they are infected for the remainder of their life (CDC, 2016a). HIV was initially thought to be a problem only in younger generations (Ellman, Sexton, Warshafsky, Sobieszczyk, & Morrison, 2014). However, evidence has emerged suggesting that an epidemic may be brewing in the older adult population (Ellman et al., 2014; Karpiak & Brennan-Ing, 2016; Robnett & Chop, 2015). I decided to research this topic, because I personally had no idea that HIV was so prevalent in this age group.
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
Primary HIV infection is the first stage and only lasts for a few weeks. Flu-like illnesses may be present during this stage. The second stage is known as clinically asymptomatic stage and typically lasts for an average of ten years. Although major symptoms might not exist during this stage, the HIV-positive person may experience swollen glands. Symptomatic HIV infection is the third stage. As the immune system continues to fail, symptoms surface and become miniscule at first then later leading to more prevalent symptoms. This third stage is generally caused by illnesses, involving cancers and infections, which the immune system would normally fight off but is not able to because the immune system is too weak. Finally, AIDS, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, develops and is the final stage of HIV. A person is diagnosed with AIDS when they show the symptom called an opportunistic infection. This is when infections take advantage of the weakened immune system. HIV leads into life threatening AIDS and causes the infected individual to feel escalating amounts of pain such as neurotic pain, tremendous headaches, gastrointestinal pain, chest pain, and even emotional pain such as depression. This pain can be intense enough to cease the individual from living a productively normal life. HIV and AIDS can strike anyone at any point in their life and should be taken seriously.
As the disease becomes more severe and the virus persistently destroys the immune system, this is known as early HIV infection. With the virus becoming more intense symptoms may vary from fatigue, once again swollen lymph nodes, diarrhea, weight loss, fever, oral yeast infection, and even shingles. With no treatment of the HIV infection, this virus will become AIDS within ten years. With AIDS present the immune system has been extremely damaged and weakened, like those common illnesses such as the flu would be extremely more dangerous because the immune system is so broken down. The sign and symptoms of this final phase of HIV is soaking night sweats, persistent fever, bad diarrhea, rash or bumps, odd white spots or uncomfortable ulcers on the tongue or even around the mouth, weight loss, and random persistent fatigue.
Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is serious public health problem worldwide. HIV weakens a person’s immune system by infecting the body’s T cells. ("About HIV/AIDS | HIV Basics | HIV/AIDS | CDC", 2016) HIV also attacks and kills CD4 white blood cells, which play an important role in protecting the body from infections. ("Immune System 101", 2016)
Initially, HIV-infected individuals will experience mild symptoms—fever, headache, and fatigue—but as the disease progresses, the immune system will weaken, and the symptoms will become worse. Symptoms of later-stage HIV infection include rapid weight loss, memory loss, recurring fever, and diarrhea that lasts more than a week. During this time, opportunistic infections become increasingly likely. These infections would not be a problem in a person with a normal immune system, but for people with a compromised immune system, they can become very troublesome. The infections are treated, but the progress of the disease cannot be
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).
“Everyday the HIV/AIDS pandemic continues to kill three times as many people than died during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001” (Elbe 2006, p.119). The Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) weakens the immune system by destroying the cells that fight disease and infection. In the final stages of the HIV infection, it can lead to the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Not all people who are diagnosed with HIV progress to acquiring AIDS, although once you have been diagnosed with the HIV infection, you have it for life. HIV/AIDS have claimed the lives of more than 39 million people globally since the discovery (World Health Organisation 2014) with a majority of these cases being in sub-Saharan Africa.
“About one in eight Americans with HIV do not realize they are infected with the virus and those people account for nearly one-third of HIV transmissions in the United States,” according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report. Unawareness of HIV infection is creates an issue of when someone becomes diagnosed the higher the chances of a more advanced disease later on. As soon as a person is infected with HIV they are not able to detect the presence of the virus because it is asymptomatic. Acute HIV infection, Clinical Latency and Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome are three main stages of HIV. Acute HIV stage is the earliest stage of HIV infection that occurs in the first couple of weeks of contraction. During the Acute HIV stage the body will either respond immediately to the infection with flu-like symptoms such as fever, fatigue and sore throat or symptoms will not arise and the only way to detect infection is by intravenous testing. Throughout this phase the body is trying to fight the infection but large amounts of the virus is being spread at a rapid pace, which causes this stage to be the most infectious of all three. The second stage of HIV is the clinical latency stage that can be either asymptomatic or chronic with negative symptoms. The symptoms of the clinical latency stage are more enhanced then the acute HIV stage. The most noticeable sign of infection are swollen lymph nodes as well as fatigue, diarrhea,
Approximately 1.2 million people are living with HIV in the United States alone. Of those 1.2 million, 13 percent did not know they were infected (Basic Statistics, 2016). These numbers are very startling. HIV, or Human Immunodeficiency Virus, attacks the body’s immune system, more specifically its T cells. With HIV weakening the immune system it can lead to a greater risk for infection, and eventually Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS).
The HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States among adolescents is a continuing upward trend despite the emphasis on abstinence. Adolescents continue to participate in risky sexual behaviors. Youth age 13-24 accounted for more than 1 in 5 new HIV diagnoses in 2014 (cdc.gov 2016). An estimated 9,731 youth age 13-24 were diagnosed with HIV in 2014 in the United States. Eighty-one percent (7,868) of diagnoses among youth occurred in persons age 20-24 (cdc.gov 2016). Among youth ages 13-24 diagnosed with HIV in 2014, 80% (7,828) were