AIDS - Life or Death?
Imagine this, one morning you wakeup next to someone who you only
know by their first name. You can't believe you took this person home with
you. Then a month later you find out that by sleeping with this person you
have contracted the HIV virus. All your goals and dreams shattered by a one
night stand.
I hope to inform you about the AIDS and HIV disease. Also, I am
going to explain to you what it is, who it affects and how it is passed.
How to prevent yourself from getting it and treatments for it.
HIV is characterized by a gradual breakdown of the immune system.
Mostly common sicknesses. A healthy person has 800 to 1200 CD4 tecells per
cubic millimeter of blood. Found in HIV this number progressivly declines.
Where a persons cells drop below 200, the body is greatly vulnerable to
sicknesses and cancers that start the end stage of HIV-AIDS.
AIDS is characterized by having your immune system devastated by
HIV. You have AIDS if on contracts certain kinds of puenomia of rare types
of cancer. After contracting AIDS you will likely die in a very short
amount of time.
First, when it originated. AID's originated somewhere in Africa
about 25-30 years ago and was thought to have been brought here in the
'70's. It first appeared in heterosexuals of both the sexes. It was
probably spread so quickly through female prostitutes. AID's has already
become a crisis of staggering proportions in parts of Africa. In Zaire, it
is estimated that 20% of their people carry the virus. That is 2 out of
every 10 people you see walking down the street. And that figure is
increasing. And if no cure is found that same thing will happen here in
the United States.
AID's was first seen only seen as a gay made disease in this
country. That was because of the numerous parteners an average gay male
had, but that statement is totally false. The HIV virus knows no skin
color, sex, age, or gender. It can infect you, me, or anybody else, gay or
straight. It can also affect rich and famous to the every day person.
Since 1981, out of 500,000 reported cases, 900,000 more may have HIV.
Currently growing most rapidly in minorities.
You can't get it by causual contact like shaking hands or hugging.
Although traces have been found in salva to prove that you can't get it
through kissing. There is no evidence that sharing food or eating utensils.
The same is for coughing and sneezing.
By these reasons you shouldn't be scared of being near someone with
AIDS. People who think otherwise are motivated by ignorance and uneducation,
not fact.
Sexual activity is one of the primary ways AIDS is spread. It is
transmitted primarily through blood or semen.
The virus can enter the body through imering of vagina volva penis,
becum or mouth during sexual inercourse. HIV is frequently spread through
use of intervirus drug users. They commonly share needles.
Women can transmit the virus to the fetus during pregnancy. It can
also be spread through the mother's milk.
Many people don't develope any symptoms when first infected. But
some people have flu like symptoms with in a month or two after getting.
They may also have a fever, headache and enlarged lymph nodes. These
symptoms usually go away after a week or so, and might be mistaken for some
other viral infection. More severe symptoms may not occur for a decade or
more.
As the immune system deterioratists a variety of different symptoms
begin to surface, such as, lymph notes enlarging again and stay enlarged
more than three months, lack of energy, weight loss, frequent fevers and
sweats.
Since no vaccine is availible the only way to prevent it is to
avoid behaviors that would put you at risk. Sharing needles and having
unprotected sex, for example.
Many people have no symptoms. There is no way of ever knowing
weather a sexual partner is infected. Abstinance is the best way to asure
you will not get AIDS through sex.
When AIDS first surfaced in the United States, no drugs were
availible to fight it. Over the past ten years new drugs and therapes have
been developed. These drugs do not cure it, but inturupt and slow down its
growth to give the person a longer life. Currently, there is no treatment
that shows significant promise for a cure.
In conclusion, AIDS is a life and death issue. To have the disease
means to have a slow, but inevitable death. I hope you now know a little
more about it and you are more educated to make better decisions.Partner sites: Pitbull pics, Study Spanish in Ecuador, and Free Essays and Term Papers