Hiv Is A Human Immunodeficiency Virus

When infected by HIV in the early stages the immune system tries fight against the virus which is the cause of the symptoms sufferers start to experience. Once these symptoms begin to leave your body generally suffers do not experience any other symptoms afterwards. However due to the damage done to the immune system after years of suffering from the disease it is likely to experience weight loss, hot sweats, skin issues and serious illnesses. It is vital that when testing for HIV the 5 C’s are followed which have been placed by the world health organisation which are as

Did you know “AIDS is the leading cause of death in Africa” (Quinn, online). Twenty percent of Africa’s population has died from AIDS. Poverty is a big problem in Africa. Men have been forced to become migrant workers in urban areas. And antiretroviral treatment at this time is not available to African people. AIDS is a big problem in Africa today that is now requiring help from the world.

In The Invisible Cure, Helen Epstein talks about why HIV/AIDS rate is so high in Africa compared to the rest of the world. Through the book, she gives us an account of the disease and the struggles that many health experts and ordinary Africans went through to understand this disease, and how different African countries approached the same problem differently. Through this paper, I will first address the different ways Uganda and Southern African countries, South Africa and Botswana in particular, dealt with this epidemic, and then explain how we can use what we have learned from these African countries to control outbreaks of communicable disease elsewhere around the world.

In the sub-Saharan Africa, the majority of the population suffers from HIV leading to AIDS. The culprits responsible for this epidemic include the lack of knowledge about the disease, disuse of condoms due to religious practices and the overall poor hygiene. If left untreated, the rampant surge of AIDS can terrribly impact the cost of their healthcare, the African economy and the welfare of the people. This implications justify immediately finding remedies to what ails the sub-Saharan population.

The virus has been divided up into three patterns. Pattern 1 is the type of AIDs in North America, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. In these parts of the world AIDs is spread mostly by homosexual intercourse and found in homosexual and bisexual men most often. The number of cases has drastically dropped from blood transfusion due to routine screenings. The sharing of needles by intravenous drug abusers seems to be becoming a huge problem in helping to spread the disease faster. Since homosexual and bisexual men seem to be at a greater risk for the virus, the ratio of men to women is 20:1 in the pattern 1 countries.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the majority of people in the world living with HIV/AIDS reside in Sub-Saharan Africa. Since there is currently no vaccine to prevent the spread of the infection, there have been countless attempts in the past to control the spread of HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa. There are multiple ways of infection spread in Sub-Saharan Africa. People are contracting the disease through, drug use, sexual relations, giving birth, and blood-to-blood contact. With so many ways to contract the infection it makes the prevention of spreading the infection so difficult, especially in such a low-income country. These challenges have not stopped many scientists, educators, and health-care professionals create interventions to try and stop the wildfire, that is the spread of HIV/AIDS in Sub- Saharan Africa. Most interventions have failed and some have helped. There are a huge amount of factors that need to be carefully thought about when creating an intervention. What looks good on paper may not work for the culture of a country. Making all people in sub- Saharan Africa listen, understand and act on a plan is nearly impossible.

Having less HIV in your body gives your immune system a chance to recover and fight off infections and cancers. Even though there is still some HIV in the body, the immune system is strong enough to fight off infections and

sex if one of the main causes of having HIV. A person can go without it being detected for

HIV attacks the body’s immune system, by destroying CD4 cells also knows as T cells, that are a type of white blood cells that help the body immune system fight off infections. T cells have proteins that helps the HIV virus bind. If HIV is left untreated, it can reduce the numbers of infected CD4 cells in the body, making the person's more prone to infections ("CD4 Count, HIV, and AIDS: Test and Results -- What They Mean," n.d.). Over time, HIV can completely destroy these cells and the body can no longer fight off infectious disease. When the body begins losing its ability to fight infections and the CD4 cell

Overall, the crisis of HIV/AIDS, especially in sub-Saharan Africa is still a major issue. Perhaps the biggest factor is that developed nations have become fairly complacent when considering the disease, as not only has its prevalence dropped significantly in most areas, but treatment through anti-retroviral regimens has managed to increase an infected person’s lifespan to a level almost matching an uninfected person’s average lifespan. Those in sub-Saharan Africa face several key issues with this disease. A lack of education regarding HIV/AIDS and a lack of health care facilities and medication to combat HIV/AIDS are perhaps two of the largest. The country unfortunately faces an upcoming crisis, with the youngest generation’s parents and caregivers becoming too sick or succumbing to the disease before vital education, such as the ability to farm a landscape suffering from desertification, is passed on (Sowing Seeds of Hunger).

According to the documentary, sexual activity is one of the primary ways to transmit HIV/AIDS. Vaginal, oral, or anal sexual intercourse with a person who has HIV/AIDS increases a person’s risk of contracting the disease greatly. The virus can enter a person’s body through bodily fluids. The documentary focused on Nel Davis, an individual who contracted HIV. Her husband did not tell her that he had HIV prior to marrying her, possibly out of fear that she would not want to be with him if she knew that he had HIV. This stigma is very dangerous and has resulted in the transmission of the disease to many individuals.

HIV and AIDS is spread and contracted by humans in a variety of ways. HIV/AIDS is spread when bodily fluids, such as saliva, breast milk, and blood, are exchanged from human to human. These body fluids are exchanged through human contact, blood transfers, or sharing medical equipment. Scientists have discovered that HIV/AIDS is very common among lesbian and homosexual couples; although, it can be frequent in

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a virus that alters the immune system, making the population with HIV vulnerable to infections and diseases. HIV can be found in the body fluids of an infected person. The virus is passed from one person to another through blood-to-blood and sexual contact. HIV can be transmitted in many ways, such as vaginal, oral sex, anal sex, blood transfusion, and contaminated needles. Patients with HIV cannot clear to virus out of their bodies like most other viruses do. Once a patient is diagnosed with HIV, he will have it for life. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2015), HIV can stay in the body for a long time and attack ones T-cells or CD4 cells, which are the cells that are needed

Individuals not treated at the early stage of HIV have a higher chance of developing AIDS. Typically it takes up to 10 years for this last

HIV/AIDS is one of the most difficult epidemic to control especially in rural areas. HIV is a virus spread through certain body fluids that attacks the body’s immune system, specifically the CD4 cells, often called T cells. Over time, HIV can destroy so many of these cells that the body would lose the ability to fight off infections and diseases. As a result of the