What is HIV?
HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus which is a virus that attacks the human immune system. Once the body is unable to continue fighting the infection, the disease is more severe and known as AIDS. It usually takes more than 10 years to progress from the HIV virus to AIDS which is a deadly disease that has killed over than 25 million people around the world. HIV can be transmitted between people many different ways. Any kind of unprotected sexual intercourse is a very common way for HIV to be passed on. As well sharing needles, unsterilized tools for tattoos or piercings and exposure in health care settings. HIV can even be passed on to an infant during birth by their infected mother.
What is happening in Uganda?
The country’s first cases of HIV were detected in 1982. About 2.6 million Ugandans were infected while 1.6 million people lost their lives to the HIV/AIDS illness. HIV/AIDS is a massive issue which currently, 7.2 percent of Uganda’s population is living with. 90% of HIV cases are discovered in developing countries and Uganda has the 7th highest number of HIV cases reported all over the world. This amounts to an estimated 1.4 million people, which includes approximately 190,000 children. In 2011 an estimated 62,000 people died from AIDS and 1.1 million children have been orphaned due to the virus. HIV is more common in women at 5.4 percent, compared to 2.4 percent prevalence rate amongst men. Developing countries such as Uganda have less money to support their basic necessities. Majority of these people do not have enough money to purchase health care to help keep them safe from the virus. As well in Uganda there is a lack of education about how HIV/AIDS is transmitted. Children need to be educate...
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...n do very little about this. Uganda residents do not have the basics to survive which is simply unfair and does not allow them to live their life to their full potential.
Comparing Canada and Uganda
Canada has reported HIV/AIDS cases but the numbers are drastically lower than those in Uganda. An estimated 3175 new HIV/AIDS infections occurred in Canada in 2011 while about 150,000 infections are diagnosed each year in Uganda. An estimated 62,000 Ugandan people died from AIDS in 2011 while in 26 years there has been 22,322 AIDS diagnoses. There is a major difference between the two countries life expectancy. Canada has a high life expectancy at 80.93 years while Uganda only has an estimated life duration of 54.07 that’s a 26.86 year difference! This shows the difference between a developed and a developing country resident quality of life, which is enormous.
What would you say if I asked you to tell me what you think is causing the death of so many people in the horn of Africa? AIDS? Starvation? War? Would it surprise you if I told you that it all boils down to the women of Africa? Kofi Annan attempts to do just this in his essay “In Africa, Aids Has a Woman's Face.” Annan uses his work to tell us that women make up the “economic foundation of rural Africa” and the greatest way for Africa to thrive is through the women of Africa's freedom, power, and knowledge.
"Uganda - African Economic Outlook." African Economic Outlook - Measuring the Pulse of Africa. 06 Nov. 2011. Web. 12 Dec. 2011. .
It considers the present and future impact of the AIDS epidemic on major demographic measures such as fertility, mortality, life expectancy, gender, age, and family structure. Although the sub-Saharan region accounts for just 10% of the world’s population, 67% (22.5 million) of the 33.4 million people living with HIV/AIDS in 1998 were residents of one of the 34 countries of sub-Saharan Africa, and of all AIDS deaths since the epidemic started, 83% have occurred in sub-Saharan Africa (Gilks, 1999, p. 180). Among children under age 15 living with HIV/AIDS, 90% live in sub-Saharan Africa, as do 95% of all AIDS orphans. In several of the 34 sub-Saharan nations, 1 out of every 4 adults is HIV-positive (UNAIDS, 1998, p. 1). Taxing low-income countries with health care systems inadequate to handle the burden of non-AIDS related illnesses, AIDS has devastated many of the sub-Saharan African economies.
The unfathomably high number of people cannot dwindle if nobody is to contribute towards this cause. Over 826 million people in the world do not live in proper areas because no one has offered any aid fo...
HIV is the human immunodeficiency virus; this virus can lead to acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS. Accoring to Avert, 2.6 million people became infected with HIV in 2009, there are now an estimated 33.3 million people around the world who are living with HIV. HIV is transmitted by the exchange of bodily fluids via sharing contaminated syringes, from infected mother to the child, and sexual contact. Contact with blood, semen, vaginal secretions, breast milk, or saliva that is contaminated with HIV, puts an individual at higher risk for contracting HIV. However, HIV cannot be transmitted by touch, coughing, or by bits from insect vectors.
Less than two decades before drought struck Karamoja, Uganda, “At independence (1962), Uganda had one of the most vigorous and promising economies in Sub-Sahara Africa,” (Kapoor 3). They key to this statement is “at independence.” When Amin overthrew the government, the economy declined, war broke out, and the new poorly run government were the cause of the country’s demise. Amin’s selfishness and hunger for power left his own people as the victims in the years following his regime. 1980 was not the first year for drought in Uganda, but, “Traditionally, the population in the region was prepared to cope with those periods of drought by maintaining large herds of livestock, using communal forms of assistance, moving to other agricultural regions in search of food, or by early state intervention.
By the year 2000, 58 million people have been infected by HIV/AIDS and alarming numbers such as 22 million would have already died. And the epidemic continues to spread. HIV/AIDS historically is considered to be one of the longest running worldwide epidemics that we have ever seen, and figures cannot be placed on the true death tolls or estimation of the damage as the cycle still is yet to reach an end (Whiteside 2002). With Africa being the worst hit continent in the world in terms of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the severity of it’s prevalence; one can only begin to question whether HIV/AIDS and poverty and directly connected or the inter-linkages exacerbate one or the other. This paper aims to argue that HIV/AIDS is a manifestation of poverty, and simultaneously poverty contributes to growing HIV/AIDS epidemic. Development in response both to poverty reduction and to HIV/AIDS is complicated when both have multi-dimensional and multi-faceted impacts on a society, whether it be social, economic or human development impacts. This paper will argue that pre-existing socio economic conditions within a country such as high levels of poverty, poor sanitation, malnutrition, environmental degradation and poor public healthcare systems and limited access to preventative care are crucial factors in contributing to the transfer of the infection (Pasteur: 2000, Mann: 1999).
Child mortality is an ongoing global health issue that impacts the developing Global South at a higher rate than the Global North. The overall global rate of child mortality has decreased over the last 50 years yet rates in Sub-Saharan Africa have experienced little change and one in four countries within Sub-Saharan have seen an increased, showing the poorest progress and slowest decline globally (Mogford 2004 p. 94). Sub-Saharan Africa continues to have great obstacles in decreasing child mortality. One of the main causes for high child mortality is the effect HIV and AIDS has on the region. Child mortality caused by HIV and AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa would dramatically improve with better education, lowering poverty and with funding and medical accessibility.
According to WHO in 2007, “more than 95% of HIV cases are in developing countries, with two-thirds of them in sub-Saharan Africa. “ In addition, there were 2.1 million deaths related to HIV and 2.5 million...
Southern Africa has an extremely high prevalence of people living with HIV and this had led many international organizations to work on mitigating the epidemic. The governments of countries in Southern Africa are not able to combat the HIV epidemic alone because they do not have the resources. One reason for this is corruption within the health care system. Many times funding is used to help wealthier citizens, while the average citizen is left with minimal resources and limited access to care. Another political issues that has been detrimental to the HIV epidemic is when governmental procedure is slow and inhibits positive change being enacted through drawn out legal
The Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, commonly known as HIV/AIDS is a disease, with which the human immune system, unlike in other disease, cannot cope. AIDS, which is caused by the HIV virus, causes severe disorder of the immune system and slowly progresses through stages which disable the body’s capability to protect and instead makes it vulnerable for other infections. The first blood sample to contain HIV was drawn in 1959 in Zaire, Africa while molecular genetics have suggested that the epidemic first began in the 1930s (Smallman & Brown, 2011). Currently, according to the Joint UN Program on HIV/AIDS, 35.3 million people worldwide are living with HIV. In 2012, an estimated 2.3 million people became newly infected with the virus and 1.6 million people lost their lives to AIDS (Fact Sheet, UNAIDS). It is due to the globalized international society that a disease which existed in one part of the world has managed to infect so many around the world. Globalization is narrowly defined by Joseph Stiglitz as "the removal of barriers to free trade and the closer integration of national economies" (Stiglitz, 2003). Globalization has its effects in different aspects such as economy, politics, culture, across different parts of the world. Like other aspects, globalization affects the health sector as well. In a society, one finds different things that connect us globally. As Barnett and Whiteside point out (2000), “health and wellbeing are international concerns and global goods, and inherent in the epidemic are lessons to be learned regarding collective responsibility for universal human health” (Barnett & Whiteside, 2000). Therefore, through all these global connections in the international society, t...
The AIDS virus is the most common disease, and with no cure, an infected person will die. It is estimated that 90 to 95 percent of AIDS infections occur in developing countries where the world’s worst living conditions exist.
The overriding challenge Uganda faces today is the curse of poverty. Poverty, ‘the lack of something”(“Poverty.”), something can be materials, knowledge, or anything one justifies as necessary to living. Associated with poverty is the question of what causes poverty and how to stop poverty? The poverty rate in Uganda has declined from the year 2002 from the year 2009, which shows the percent of residents living in poverty has decreasing. Yet, the year is 2014 and the poverty rate could have drastically changed over the course of five years. One could assume the poverty rate would continue to decrease, which would be astounding and beneficial, but does poverty ever decrease enough to an acceptable level or even nonexistence? Poverty is a complex issue that continues to puzzle people from all across the globe. Poverty could possible be a question that is never truly answered.
The emergence of HIV/AIDS is viewed globally as one of the most serious health and developmental challenges our society faces today. Being a lentivirus, HIV slowly replicates over time, attacking and wearing down the human immune system subsequently leading to AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome) at which point the affected individual is exposed to life threatening illnesses and eventual death. Despite the fact that a few instances of this disease have been accounted for in all parts of the world, a high rate of the aforementioned living with HIV are situated in either low or medium wage procuring nations. The Sub-Saharan region Africa is recognized as the geographic region most afflicted by the pandemic. In previous years, people living with HIV or at risk of getting infected did not have enough access to prevention, care and treatment neither were they properly sensitized about the disease. These days, awareness and accessibility to all the mentioned (preventive methods, care etc.) has risen dramatically due to several global responses to the epidemic. An estimated half of newly infected people are among those under age 25(The Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic). It hits hard as it has no visible symptoms and can go a long time without being diagnosed until one is tested or before it is too late to manage.
Human Immunodeficiency Virus is a dangerous, deadly disease among the human race. HIV is when the bacteria goes into the lymphocytes, and make the body believe the cell is a germ. Soon after, the immune system will begin to attack itself and will get weaker each time. HIV has infected thousands and thousands of people in the world, from Asia to Europe, to the United States. Millions are infected and this can last for a life time. There is no cure and is contagious. HIV can be transmitted through sex, blood, oral sex, sperm, vagina fluids, also from the milk of the breast. HIV and AIDS can be also transmitted through needles, like a tattoo needle or a needle to inject drugs. Women that have HIV can pass it on to their offspring in the womb, because it is in the blood flow which goes through into the offspring.