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Negative impact of HIV aids
The Prevention of the Spread of HIV
The Prevention of the Spread of HIV
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HIV and AIDS have affected millions of people throughout the world. Since 1981, there have been 25 million deaths due to AIDS involving men, women, and children. Presently there are 40 million people living with HIV and AIDS around the world and two million die each year from AIDS related illnesses. The Center for Disease Control estimates that one-third of the one million Americans living with HIV are not aware that they have it. The earliest known case of HIV was in 1959. It was discovered in a blood sample from a man in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Looking further into the genetics of this blood sample researchers suggested that it had originated from a virus going back to the late 1940’s or early 1950’s. In 1999, researchers had discovered that HIV is derived from chimpanzees native to west equatorial Africa. This epidemic is spreading throughout countries and infecting 14 thousand victims every day. Learning about HIV includes knowing how to contract the virus, understanding most of the people it affects, how to prevent the spread of it, and knowing what treatments are available.
HIV, or Human Immunodeficiency Virus, is a progressive disease that attacks and weakens the immune system causing the HIV-positive person to become more susceptible to any ailments and infections. Human Immunodeficiency Virus is caused by the transfer of bodily functions including blood, breast milk, semen, and vaginal secretions. Sex, including oral, vaginal, and anal, is the most common way of obtaining HIV. It can also be acquired by injecting a needle into your body that was used by someone who has HIV. The virus cannot be spread through the air or though food and water. You also cannot contract the virus from shaking a HIV-posit...
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...trive to live normal lives. Scientists also struggle to create a vaccine to get rid of HIV permanently. It is an important live saving decision to practice safe sex or abstinence and also to avoid the using needles to inject drugs.
Bibliography
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DHH-Office of Public Health. Young and Gay Protect Yourself from HIV. Santa Cruz: Journeyworks, 1998. Print.
U.S. Department of Health and Services. HIV Vaccines Explained. NIH Publication, 2006. Print.
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AIDS & HIV Information from the AIDS Charity AVERT. Web. 29 July 2010. .
"HIV/AIDS Basics." AIDS.gov. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Web. 18 Jan. 2012. . Regularly maintained by the U.S. Dept. of HHS
It is crucial to understand that, unlike most transmissible diseases, AIDS/HIV is not transmitted through sneezing, coughing, eating or drinking from common utensils, or even being around an infected person. Casual contact with AIDS/HIV infected persons does not place others at risk. HIV/AIDS can be passed through unprotected sex with an infected person, sharing contaminated needles, from infected mother to baby during pregnancy, birth or breastfeeding, and through direct exposure to infected blood or blood
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) was first recognized as a new disease in 1981 when increasing numbers of young homosexual men succumbed to unusual opportunistic infections and rare malignancies (Gallant49).During this time, many people were contacting this disease because it was not discovered yet and people did not have knowledge about it.Scientists believe HIV came from a particular kind of chimpanzee in Western Africa. Humans contracted this disease when they hunted and ate infected animals. A first clue came in 1986 when a morphologically similar but antigenically distinct virus was found to cause AIDS in patients in western Africa (Goosby24). During this time, scientists had more evidence to support their claim about this disease. Once discovered this disease was identified as a cause of what has since become one of the most devastating infectious diseases to have emerged in recent history (Goosby101). This disease was deadly because it was similar to the Black Death, it was killing majority of the population. Since its first identification almost three decades ago, the pandemic form of HIV-1 has infected at least 60 million people and caused more than 25 million deaths ...
The widespread epidemic was first introduced in 1959 when HIV/AIDS was present in a sample that was taken from a deceased man in Kinshasa, Congo. This man hunted down the chimpanzee, where he ultimately fell into contact with the blood of the chimpanzee. For instance, HIV is a human immunodeficiency virus that causes HIV/AIDS, which is a chronic immune system
HIV, like many other STD's is transmitted through unprotected sexual intercourse. However, it can also be transmitted by infected "blood transfusions", an infected mother to fetus, and sharing infected needles as well as breast milk (2009, NIAID). The reason it is really unlikely that a person should contract this virus by skin contact, is because the way HIV invades a person's system (2009, NIAID). The virus itself has special markers on its plasma membrane called "CD Markers" that locate specific cells within a person's body that target specific cells such as helper-T Cells and Microphages (2012, Phelan). The HIV virus cannot invade cells that it cannot latch on to, so a handshake with a person who has HIV will not transfer the disease because skin cells do not have the appropriate receptors that the virus can attack. When the HIV cells find the specific cell it targets, they attach themselves to its surface and then releases its DNA proteins into the cell. The virus's DNA then take over the host cell's DNA and commands it to create copies of the HIV virus. The cell produces viral RNA which creates viral proteins that migrate to the cell edge and form an undeveloped HIV virus which then is expelled from the cell and matures into a new copy of the HIV virus.
Spink, Gemma. "AIDS." AVERTing HIV and AIDS. 23 Dec 2009. Web. 11 Jan 2010. .
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), approximately five million people will become ill by one or more of these four sexually transmitted infections (STI) each year; chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, and trichomoniasis.1 Out of these four, gonorrhea has become increasingly drug resistant which causes a major threat to attempts to decrease STI’s. 1 This disease is also known to have a high prevalence and low mortality within our society.1 Individuals living with gonorrhea will also have a high chance of being infected with chlamydia and HIV. (1,2)
Recently Camden County College has installed condom dispensers throughout the campus, this decision has created a controversy thought the campus. The decision was made to combat the STD epidemic spread through college age young adults. However, any of the opposition’s claims are simply based on preference; installing the condom dispensers was a good decision. Both sides can agree that any couple participating in intercourse that isn’t looking to conceive should use a condom, but whether it should be distributed in a school is the debate.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, (2012). Refocusing national attention on the hiv crisis in the united states. Retrieved from website: http://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/newsroom/docs/2012/AAAFactSheet-0712-508c.pdf
HIV is the human immunodeficiency virus; this virus can lead to acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS. According 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 the 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.
Scientists are unsure of the exact origins of HIV, but many believe it started when humans came into contact with a certain type of chimpanzee from Western Africa, (AIDS, 2014). There is evidence that monkeys do have a virus like HIV called Simian Immunodeficiency Virus, or SIV, that has been around for many years. Scientists believe SIV transferred to humans from chimps when hunters came in contact with the animal and ate infected meat.
Trojan Condom Company is hoping to be the leading tool to promote awareness of this rising statistic as well as encourage methods of prevention. Trojan believes “sexual health is best realized through personal awareness, communication, and access to accurate information and services.”
In 1981, a new fatal, infectious disease was diagnosed--AIDS (Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome). It began in major cities, such as New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and San Francisco. People, mostly homosexual men and intravenous drug users, were dying from very rare lung infections or from a cancer known as Kaposi’s sarcoma. They have not seen people getting these diseases in numerous years. Soon, it also affected hemophiliacs, blood recipients, prostitutes and their customers, and babies born from AIDS-infected women. AIDS was soon recognized as a worldwide health emergency, and as a fatal disease with no known cure, that quickly became an epidemic. When high-profile victims began to contract the virus, such as basketball star Magic Johnson, the feeling spread quickly that anyone, not just particular groups of people, could be at risk. AIDS impairs the human body’s immune system and leaves the victim susceptible to various infections. With new research, scientists think that the disease was first contracted through a certain type of green monkey in Africa, then somehow mutated into a virus that a human could get. AIDS is a complicated illness that may involve several phases. It is caused by a virus that can be passed from person to person. This virus is called HIV, or Human Immuno-deficiency Virus. In order for HIV to become full-blown AIDS, your T-cell count (number of a special type of white-blood cells that fight off diseases) has to drop below 200, or you have to get one of the symptoms of an AIDS-induced infection.
No cure or vaccine now exists for AIDS. Many of those infected with HIV may not
HIV and AIDS has been termed a sexually transmitted disease (STD) in South Africa, because it is mainly transmitted through unprotected sexual intercourse; but then HIV and AIDS can also be transmitted through circumstances where they was no control such as, blood transfusions, sharp objects e.g. razor blades, needles, injections and in some cases it is transmitted at birth if the mother is not on medication during pregnancy (positives women’s network, 2012). Moreover one cannot contract HIV and AIDS through kisses, handshakes, hugs etc. It can only be contracted through any form of blood exchange with an HIV patient.