AIDS Epidemic

Others may look at you differently because you are infected with HIV or AIDS. Everyone will be try to stay away. It’s not worth losing people in life because you decided to have sex and you ended up with a lifelong disease. When being infected HIV and AIDS, will change one’s life forever. Abstinence may be “uncool” too many teens, but abstinence is very important because it can save one from suffering in life.

About a month after being infected, a person develops a viral infection. The viral infection is similar to the flu and causes fever, fatigue, weight loss, and swollen glands. These symptoms usually subside, and a person may not develop AIDS for up to 10 years after being infected with HIV. During this time, the HIV virus continues to multiple and destroys cells of the immune system. A person is diagnosed with AIDS when the immune system is so deteriorated by HIV that it can no longer fight off certain infections and diseases known as "opportunistic infections."

Most of them do not know they carry HIV and may be spreading the virus to others. Here in the U.S., nearly one million people have HIV infection or AIDS, or roughly one out of every 250 people. At least 40,000 Americans become newly infected with HIV each year, and it is estimated that half of all people with HIV in the U.S. have not been tested and do not know they are carrying the virus. Since the beginning of the epidemic, AIDS has killed more than 30 million people worldwide, including more than 500,000 Americans. AIDS has replaced malaria and tuberculosis as the world's deadliest infectious disease among adults and is the fourth leading cause of death worldwide.

30 years ago, many wondered how do people get Aids. After years of studies Aids comes from HIV. Aids is the most advanced stage of HIV infection. What having the infection HIV do to your body is it destroys your immune system. Also you get terrible flu to the point of death.

In 2012 an estimated 2.3 million people were newly infected with HIV, 260,000 were under the age of 15. Every day nearly 6,300 people contract HIV - nearly 262 every hour. In 2012, 1.6 million people died from AIDS, 210,000 of them were under the age of 15. Since the beginning of the epidemic, more than 75 million people have contracted HIV and nearly 36 million have died of HIV-related causes”. This disease is transferred from one person to another by blood, semen & pre-seminal fluid, vaginal secretions, breast milk, hypodermic needles and from mother to unborn child through the placenta.

Many people who are infected with HIV do not even show signs for 10 years or more. The next stage is the “clinical latency” stage. During this stage, people who are infected experience no symptoms. If you do not take medication, this stage can turn into AIDS. Once the virus attacks all of your T-cells or CD4 cells, the infection can lead to AIDS.

Since 1981 this monster has plagued our streets ruining life after life, destroying everything in its path. This haunting disease comes in the form of a virus that has killed 21.8 million people thus far, of which almost 20 percent were children under the age of fifteen. Yet there are still millions of individuals who still don't believe they can be affected by Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, the AIDS virus. For this reason and many more the number of infected HIV/AIDS persons have grown to approximately 40 million. Ignorance and denial is also a big helper when is comes to promoting HIV.

HIV and AIDS have affected millions of people throughout the world. Since 1981, there have been 25 million deaths due to AIDS involving men, women, and children. Presently there are 40 million people living with HIV and AIDS around the world and two million die each year from AIDS related illnesses. The Center for Disease Control estimates that one-third of the one million Americans living with HIV are not aware that they have it. The earliest known case of HIV was in 1959.

Behind this mounting death count are the signs of growing social disruption. For example, in sub-Saharan Africa, more than 1 million children have lost their parents to AIDS. And within four years, there will be more than 2 million AIDS orphans in the following seven countries combined: Dominican Republic, Kenya, Rwanda, Thailand, Uganda, the United States, and Zambia. Illness and death among young adults due to HIV have reached such proportions in some countries that overall national economics and productivity are affected. In Uganda, for example, 44 percent of all premature deaths are attributable to AIDS.

AIDS Unprotected sex, dirty needles,pills!! Now that I have your attention, today I’ll be talking to you about the causes and effects on how you can contract this deadly virus. But first let me start by explaining what Aids/HIV really is and what it does to you once you have contracted the Aids virus. Aids/Aids lowers your immune systems ability to produce the white blood cells and antibodies that protect you from colds, infections, etc. Lowered immunity makes a person vulnerable to attacks from different types of viruses.