Treatment and Prevention of HIV AIDS

Although the spread of HIV/AIDS is often forgotten today, due to improvements in available treatments, it is still a serious threat to the lives of many Americans. According to the New Jersey State Department of Health, the agency “facilitates a range of services and programs that provide testing, counseling, medical assistance, and other support to people living with HIV/AIDS,” as well as prophylactic treatments such as pre-exposure prophylaxis PrEP, which is a drug therapy to mitigate the risk of contracting HIV/AIDS in high-risk populations (“HIV, STD, and TB Services,” 2017, par.1). The CDC conducts surveillance of trends of rates of reported infection; although anyone can contract HIV/AIDS, certain groups (such as gay men, IV drug users, and people of color) are at higher risk and the CDC tracks the evolving patterns of the spread of the disease.

While the CDC’s surveillance program is part of the ongoing ways in which the community’s risk can be curtailed, education is also needed. The CDC also offers information about how to use condoms appropriately to prevent the spread of the disease (“Prevention,” 2017). From an evidence-based perspective, the World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed that public health campaigns supporting condom use for high risk groups, including sex workers, have been useful in reducing AIDS transmission rates (“Condoms and Important Form of Protection,” 2009).
Thus, according to both the CDC and WHO, correct condom during vaginal and anal sex can be of significant protection in curtailing the spread of HIV/AIDS (oral sex, as noted by the CDC, carries negligible risk except in the presence of open mouth sores). For high risk groups, the use of PrEP may be useful, and for individuals who are exposed to HIV/AIDS (such as through a condom breaking or accidental needle contact), there is also a post-exposure drug called post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) which can substantially reduce the individual’s risk.
References
Condoms an important form of protection from HIV. (2009). WHO. Retrieved from: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/multimedia/podcasts/2009/hiv_condoms_20090325/en/