HIV/AIDS: Transmission, Symptoms, Prevention - Essay Example

A general introduction to HIV/AIDS. The definition of HIV/AIDS, its incidence over the world mainly in the UK and USA. Its method of transmission, symptoms, prevention. From its first beginnings in the early 1980’s, through to the explosion of the epidemic in the USA, the UK and subsequently throughout the world, AIDS has become one of the defining features of modern medicine. While more people are infected now than at any other time in the past AIDS has moved form being a proverbial death sentence to being, in some senses at least, a manageable disease, for at least a few years.. Presently it is the cost of treatment that is one of the major controversies surrounding the condition, together with the fact that new generations of high-risk groups are appearing who appear to be taking the same risks as their forebears. HIV is defined as the human immunodeficiency virus while AIDS is acquired immune deficiency syndrome (Barnett, 2003). HIV is the virus that causes the gradual and eventually total collapse of the immune system that enables AIDS diseases such as pneumocystis pneumonia, Kaposi’s sarcoma and a host of other conditions to affect the patient (Ward, 1998). As the Department of Health (2007) suggests, “anyone can get AIDS .. . AIDS cases have been reported from all age groups, all races, in virtually every country in the world.” (State, 2007) . Risk behaviors for becoming infected with HIV are unprotected sex, particularly of an anal nature with multiple partners and needle sharing among injectable drug users. There is no cure for AIDS, even while a number of drugs have been developed thazt enable the disease to be managed for at least a few years. Presently “80-90% of patients with AIDS have died within 3-5 years after diagnosis with AIDS” (State, 2007). One of the major problems with AIDS is that a person may become HIV positive but remain symptom-free for years. But they are capable of transmitting HIV within days of becoming infected. The lag time between becoming infected and the onset of full-blown AIDS has been one of the most difficult epidemiological factors to overcome (Fan, 2004). The World Health Organization estimates that there are at least 30 million cases of AIDS currently worldwide (WHO, 2007). The majority of these are in Africa where some countries such as Uganda have been decimated by AIDS. Some estimate that a majority of the Ugandan population is HIV-positive (WHO, 2007) and it is not the only country in Africa with this situation. There are several factors that have led to the spread of AIDS in Africa. First is the unwillingness of many men to wear condoms, together with ignorance about what causes the spread of AIDS and how to avoid it. Secondly, a lack of testing facilities means that HIV and even full-blown AIDS went undiagnosed for many years. Third, the medical systems in the countries involved are very poor, often having only a few dollars per capita to spend on total health care. The care of just one Person With Aids (PWA) costs several hundred dollars a year. There is currently an explosion of AIDS in India, China and in the former Soviet countries in Eastern Europe (WHO, 2007). AIDS exists in virtually every country in the world. Moving to America, the CDC estimates that at the end of 2003 (the last year for which full figures are currently available) “an estimated 1,039,000 to 1,185,000 persons in the United States were living with HIV/AIDS, with 24-27% undiagnosed and unaware of their HIV infection” (cdc, 2007). An average of about 42,000 new cases a year has occurred for the last few years (cdc, 2007). A majority of both new and cumulative cases are, not surprisingly, to be found within the sexually active ages of 20-50 (cdc, 2007). More than 40% of AIDS cases occur from male-to-male anal contact, both new and cumulative. There is an interesting racial disparity as well. While African-Americans make up about 12% of the population they make up nearly 38% of all AIDS cases and over 50% of new AIDS cases (cdc, 2007). This change from AIDS being a “white, gay, male” disease has occurred for a number of reasons. First of all, the prevention programs that started to be developed in the mid-1980s and have been in existence ever since have worked in educating the groups that were originally most susceptible to AIDS: educated, middle-class gay men. These programs have not been as effective in targeting groups such as African Americans and women. The perception that AIDS was a “gay disease” meant that many people within other groups felt that they were not susceptible to the disease. Thus promiscuous, unprotected sex continued among them. In fact education is perhaps the best prevention program of all. If young people are taught about the dangers of unprotected age as they become sexually active they are less likely to engage in such behaviors (cdc, 2007). Advertising programs aimed at particular groups, such as African-Americans, also work because they enable these groups to see that the disease will effect them as well. In Britain a smaller proportion of the population is infected with HIV/AIDS than in the United States. Thus in the last year for which full figures are available, 2003, the UK government estimates that there were 63,500 adults living with HIV/AIDS (avert, 2006). This converts to about .001% of the population compared to .03% of the population in the United States. This difference reflects the fact that AIDS (in the Western world at least) started in America and has remained more visible and virulent in this country than elsewhere. As with America there is a racial disparity in the incidence of AIDS in the UK. It is even more pronounced in the UK with 51% of cases estimated to be among black-Africans (avert, 2006). About 46% of existing and new infections occurred through male-to-male anal contact but there has now been a change to a predominance of heterosexual transmission, with 62% of new diagnoses in 2003 being heterosexual and an estimated 54% in 2005 (HPA, 2006). As with America and the rest of the Western world there seems to be a new generation of young people becoming sexually active who have not fully understood, or do not fully accept, public health messages regarding AIDS. One of the main reasons for this is that this generation did not grow up at the time when AIDS first appeared and started to decimate a whole generation of gay men. The facts of AIDS were obvious to anyone who took the time to look in the mid 1980’s. AIDS is now more than twenty years old and is an “accepted” fact of life for many young people. The tendency of the young to believe that they are somehow impervious to outside harm goes along with the prevailing attitude that “it isn’t a disease of my group”. The rise in new transmissions during the Twenty-First century so far may in part stem from this fallacious idea. Paradoxically, it is the fact that new therapies do at least stave off the onset of full-blown AIDS that has made the disease somehow less terrifying. As the National Health Service states, “the annual number of HIV infections that progress to AIDS has dropped dramatically since 1996 . . . this is due to the introduction of HAART (Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy) in Britain. However, once the person does progress to full blown AIDS there life expectancy is little longer than it was in the early 1990’s. To conclude, AIDS is still a very serious threat throughout the world. This is particularly the case in the poorer, developing regions of the world where a set of circumstances makes them particularly vulnerable to the spread of AIDS. First, rudimentary healthcare systems that do not provide well for the identification and treatment of HIV/AIDS. Second, a population that often seems to ignore education programs that are designed to inform them of the risks involved with AIDS. Third, the costs of antiretrovirals is far higher than the total per capita expenditure on AIDS in many of these countries. While rich, advanced countries such as the UK and America do not face as severe problems regarding AIDS as the developing world, HIV/AIDS is still a major threat to the public health within those countries. A mixture of sound prevention, education and treatment programs, together with a continuation of the multiple billion dollar research program into developing a possible cure for AIDS that will completely destroy the virus before it permanently undermines the immune system should be the aim for the present century. _______________________________________ Works Cited Barnett, Tony. Whiteisde, Alan. AIDS in the Twenty-First Century: Disease and Globalization. Fan, Hung. AIDS: Science and Society. Jones and Bartlett, New York: 2004. HPA Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre (HIV and STI Development). 2006. APA Annual Report, “Prevention Monitoring”, 2004. http://www.state.sd.us/doh/Pubs/aids.htm Ward, Darrell. The Amfar AIDS Handbook: The Complete Guide to Understanding HIV and AIDS. WW Norton, New York: 1998. www.avert.org/aidsfaqs.htm www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/basic.htm www.who.org Read More