Paper 2 Health Pamphlet - Essay Example

AIDS has no definite cure and the world community has only been able to reduce its spread and/or reducing its effect rate on a victim already infected. For this reason, HIV/AIDS has been described as a worldwide disaster. According to National Institute of Health (NIH) (2011), as an example, more than one million US citizens live with HIV/AIDS so far. Worse still, AIDS is one of the leading killer diseases of the world (NIH, 2011). Since the disease can be controlled both medically and morally, it becomes important to let different societies know of its nature.

HIV/AIDS symptoms AIDS is more of a health condition than a disease – it only destroys the immune system – and it is difficult to tell recently infected people from healthy ones. However, victims start progressively becoming weak as time goes by (NIH, 2011). Similarly, the victim’s body becomes vulnerable to most human diseases. Sooner, the victim starts getting various illnesses that do not heal easily due to the weakened immune system. As the disease advances, each illness is manifested by distinct symptoms.

In general, according to NIH (2011), early likely symptoms (2-3 months after infection) include headache, fever, tiredness and enlargement of lymph nodes around the neck and groin areas while later symptoms (4 months and more) include: speedy weight loss; constant fever; constant tiredness; prolonged and pronounced lymph glands swellings in neck, armpits and groin; constant diarrhea; sores around anus, genitals and mouth; pneumonia; blotches around major orifices; loss of memory; stress; and depression among various other neurologic disorders.

Risk factors The HIV virus is found in four kinds of body fluids: semen, blood, vaginal fluid and breast milk. Activities that lead to direct contact with these fluids are the risk factors. They include but not limited to: engaging sex with multiple partners or with strangers without protection; recklessly sharing of intravenous injection equipment; having other sexually transmitted infections (for example, genital herpes, gonorrhea and syphilis among others); having illnesses such as tuberculosis and hepatitis; prostitution; and unknowingly passing HIV from mother to fetus, during birth or during breastfeeding.

It is important to note that HIV virus cannot survive for too long outside the body (it is a parasite in living body cells only) and that any other activity that does not result in direct contact with infected body fluids named above cannot lead to infection at all (NIH, 2011). Quality of life Often, AIDS is mistakenly taken as a bad omen in many societies. HIV victims tend to give up their dignity and thus they mostly suffer from depression, have low self esteem, and, of course, their health condition deteriorates.

This leads to poor quality of life at personal level and low life expectancy in general. However, although AIDS is an incurable condition, there are several mechanisms that are used today to reduce AIDS effects so as to lengthen life of the victims and/or to stop the HIV spreading. These include: advising victims and their caregivers on the right diet; health education for the public awareness; use of medication such as antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) (ARVs suppress the number and activity of HIV viruses in the body); and social motivation.

With proper