AIDS in Afica
HIV / AIDS in Africa

An Overview of how this Terrible Disease has Rampaged the Population in Africa and what might be done about it in the Future.

The spread of AIDS has reached epidemic proportions on the African Continent. There are many factors that can be attributed to the spread of this phenomenon. Lack of modern health care facilities and trained medical professionals is often cited as a cause as well as a source that hinders modern treatment options for infected Africans. However, this is only one factor among several and other third world nations have avoided the AIDS epidemic. Another factor that is at play is the lack of education about the disease and its method of transmission. This factor especially affects young women who generally know little about family planning or how to practice safe sex. Finally, another major factor that will be discussed is that lack….

A hemophiliac, young Ryan had contracted the disease through the infusion of blood resources that had long served as his life force; and then that life force, infected with HIV, failed him (Levitt & Rosenthal, 1999). As the young boy bravely faced the demons of the ravaging disease, friends, relatives and outpourings of public support and love marked his journey. Surrounded by his family, and new friends like the rock star Elton John, Ryan, like so many others lost his battle to AIDS.
Sociologically devastating, HIV / AIDS has, by its recession from a pandemic affliction in the United States, to a condition that responds to treatment, although treatment does not constitute a cure; has left a new condition in its wake. This new condition is what persists in the present and third phase of the disease; hundreds of thousands afflicted with a disease that because of treatments allows people….

According to Lisam & Lisam (2009), the need for doctor's advice is also fueled by the constant emergence and experiment of new and different medicines for HIV and AIDS (p. 269).
Problems Associated with Diarrhea Caused by HIV Medications:

For people living with HIV / AIDS, the negative impacts of drugs and food intake and the impact of drugs on metabolism, excretion, and absorption of nutrients may have considerable negative effects on their nutritional status. Most of the existing antiretroviral medications can contribute to fatigue, nausea, diarrhea, gastroesophageal reflux, vomiting, insulin resistance, and dyslipidemia. Generally, the disease causes the deterioration of the lining of the gut which in turn affects the ability of the gut to digest and absorb food. This contributes to the inability of the gut to absorb or take up nutrients from the eaten foods i.e. mal-absorption that causes diarrhea through which nutrients and water are lost from….

HIV / AIDS
Autoimmune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) first came to the public's attention in the United States in the early 1980s. In Africa, the cities of wanda, Zaire, Zambia and Uganda were decimated, and cases began cropping up all over the world. In rare blood samples dating back to 1959, antibodies to HIV were detected (Crowley, 1993, p. 46), and yet the virus did not seem to become a problem until twenty years later.

It is not known how the virus carried by chimpanzees and harmless to them, was transmitted to the human population. According to Chang (2011), it is most likely that a hunter in West Africa killed a chimpanzee and was infected by the chimp's blood, probably through an open wound. The virus spread as colonial cities were established, but deaths were attributed to other causes. It is unknown exactly when this scenario occurred, but it is thought to have….

In other words, people become so depressed and fall into such a state of despair upon hearing that they have HIV that their immune system is weakened, which is the real cause of developing AIDS. Null blames doctors for creating a self-fulfilling prophesy in the mindset of people diagnosed with the illness, even in the minds of children. He believes that children who do not understand what causes various types of cancer, for example, have become so media-saturated that they have come to see HIV positive status as a death sentence. But worst and most commonly of all, gay men, already living a self-destructive lifestyle of promiscuity, drugs, and other risky behavior, wear out their immune syndromes even faster after being diagnosed with HIV, once they fear that they are fated to die from the illness at a young age.

Many gay men early in the epidemic had already been damaged,….

AIDS in Urban, Black America
THE AIDS EPIDEMIC IN URBAN, BLACK AMERICA

Most people think of the AIDS epidemic as something that happens only in Africa, and they do not realize how many people in this country must struggle with the disease. The problem with AIDS in this country is not confined to one gender, age group, sexual preference, or race, but urban, black communities do have a much larger number of AIDS cases than other populations. The purpose of this paper is to discuss this issue and interlock three specific issues that deal with this epidemic. There are three specific points that are hypothesized in this paper:

The first hypothesis is that this problem affects families, economies, and communities that are largely urban and black, in that the effects of the AIDS virus and deaths from it devastate much of what is needed to keep these areas alive.

The second hypothesis is that….

Some people are of the view that, since AIDS-infected countries are financially unstable, they are unable to purchase expensive AIDS drugs which contributes to steady growth of the disease. "More than 40 million people are infected with HIV and more than 3 million have died in 2003, UNAIDS reported last week. WHO estimates more than 5 million HIV patients need anti-retroviral drugs, but fewer than 400,000 currently have access to them." (WHO)

Since only a small percentage of patients have access to high-priced AIDS drugs, it is obvious why the rate of disease expansion hasn't decreased. But there are several political factors affecting the drug prices too. In recent months, both UN AIDS agency and WHO have taken concrete measures to address the issue of high drug prices. Their initiative led to a more effective low-priced AIDS drug that is a combination of three anti-retroviral drugs. These drugs are likely to….

In addition, the state sponsors numerous community-based organizations and local county health departments that use evidence-based prevention interventions (AIDS surveillance data, 2012). The Florida State Department of Health reports that, "Evidence-based interventions are grounded in behavior change theory and have been proven scientifically to have significant impact on changing behavior, when implemented correctly. HIV / AIDS prevention agencies are funded through the department's HIV Prevention grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Closing the Gap (CTG) initiative through the Office of Minority Health" (AIDS surveillance data, 2012, para. 13).
In addition, another program that has been used in Florida for several years for senior citizens at risk for AIDS or who are suffering from AIDS is the Senior HIV Intervention Project (SHIP) (Agate, Mullins, Prudent, & Liberti, 2003). According to Agate and his associates, "SHIP encourages doctors to obtain a full sexual risk assessment from….

AIDS in America
AIDS is a devastating disease that has ravaged our world over the past twenty years. The issue of AIDS in America is one of much debate that continues to challenge the medical community. The purpose of this discussion is to examine the epidemic of AIDS in America. Our research will provide an in depth analysis of the most infected portion of our society and the tactics that are being implemented to stop the disease from spreading. Let's begin our discussion by defining the disease known as AIDS.

Definition of AIDS

According to the Gale Encyclopedia of Alternative Medicine,

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is an infectious disease caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). It was first recognized in the United States in 1981. AIDS is the advanced form of infection with the HIV virus, which may not cause disease for a long period after the initial exposure (latency). Infection with….

But the challenges facing the current South African health minister are not simply political: "hereas HIV subtype B, the dominant subtype in western Europe and the U.S.A., continued to spread among men who have sex with men, HIV subtype C, the dominant subtype in Africa and Asia, started spreading in the general population in South Africa in about 1988. Between 1990 and 1994, there was an exponential increase in the prevalence of HIV infection" and Subtype C is now the dominant type of AIDS in the region (Karim 2009). According to the international AIDS charity AVERT: "Subtype C is predominant in Southern and East Africa, India and Nepal. It has caused the world's worst HIV epidemics and is responsible for around half of all infections" (AVERT, 2009)

Recent studies have indicated that HIV type C is more easily transmitted through heterosexual contact and "subtype C is more transmissible" overall than either….

5% in 2008" (Smith, 2009). And yet, millions of children ("The lost generation") have been left orphaned by AIDS (AIDS eekly).
Speaking of South Africa, the AIDS eekly story (reporting on the Jim Lehrer NewsHour story written by Ray Suarez) points out that former South Africa President Thabo Mbeki, along with his health minister, spent years spreading "misinformation about the HIV virus), which clearly was part of the problem in South Africa. A situation in which people cannot trust their elected leaders to give them the truth about a terrible disease like HIV / AIDS is unconscionable and unacceptable. But now the new South African Minister of Health, Barbara Hogan, is "trying to contain a disease which has infected one of every 6 people in the country" (Suarez, 2009).

In the David Smith article (www.guardian.co.uk) the fact that 5.2 million South Africans were living with HIV in 2008 is "widely regarded as….

(High-isk Pregnancy). There is no doubt that AIDS is a world wide problem, which is why it has been referred to as a pandemic. It is estimated that in the time that this disease has been recorded millions of people have died ( HIV / AIDS). There are ongoing efforts to find scientific means of combating this disease. For example in 1983 the first blood test to detect exposure to HIV was developed by Dr. Luc Montagnier and obert Gallo (HIV / AIDS).
At present there is no vaccine for the virus and no known cure. Nevertheless, science has made considerable advances and various combinations of drugs have been developed and used which successfully retards the progress of the disease and improves the life quality of the patients. These include protease inhibitors, which are "…effective in interfering with reproduction of the virus and limiting the "viral load" or quantity of….

In addition, Halperin (1999) found that IDS prevention education aimed at heterosexuals continued to address vaginal-penile intercourse when heterosexual anal intercourse is responsible for more cases of heterosexual IDS outbreaks. Thus, the fact that IDS is a condition of the homosexual or heterosexual participating in vaginal-penile intercourse is a misconception that perpetuates stereotypes. Furthermore, Chin (2007) found that a person's number of sexual partners is not enough to create "epidemic sexual HIV transmission" (p. 163). In addition, Chin (2007) argues that many organizations believe a prevention program is necessary, or HIV will quickly spread into general populations where its numbers are "currently low" (p. 163). Chin's (2007) argument, however, is that this is a misconception, and there is no reason to believe that IDS will break into non-affected populations. Thus, many statements that perpetuate stereotypes about HIV are actually misconceptions, proved incorrect by the scientific literature.
great number of….

There are various blood tests used to detect HIV, of which the most frequently used is enzyme immunoassay, and if the presence of antibodies is detected, the blood is further tested with the estern blot method (AIDS). A test that measure the viral genes in the blood is has proven helpful in assessing treatment efficacy (AIDS). Although there is no cure for AIDS, there are a number of drugs available, such as AZT, ddl, and 3TC which are reverse transcriptase inhibitors, and have shown to be effective in delaying the onset of symptoms in certain subsets of infected individuals (AIDS). Moreover, adding a protease inhibitor, such as saquinovir, amprenavir, or atazanavir to AZT and 3TC has proven effective, however this combination does not eliminate the virus (AIDS). Another type of reverse transcriptase inhibitor, efavirenz must be taken with protease inhibitors or older forms of AIDS medicines (AIDS). Subsequent infections may….

Specifically, the author mentions childhood diseases, maternal health, and the three diseases HIV / AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria as the major areas of focus for health care funding in developing countries. Because of the major impact of these conditions, the author notes that the best approach is to target these directly, even if it does impact upon more general primary care structures. The very "fabric of society" is being affected by such conditions, and especially by the HIV / AIDS pandemic; hence the importance of controlling these first.
Proponents of general primary care programs note that the problem with an exclusive focus on major issues like HIV / AIDS is the fact that they often take account only of global infection and mortality figures, as mentioned above, without regard to the specific health concerns as presented on a local scale (Harzhem et al. 2006). While it is helpful and desirable….