Human Immunodeficiency Virus is a life-ending disease that needs a cure, but finding methods of treatment have caused for bioethical controversy in the past. In my opinion, past experimentation to find cures have been questionable, but overall, ethical. As we move forward with antagonist inhibition we are reaching an even more ethical balance in research. Currently, there are thirty million people worldwide that are suffering from this virus. Every year another 2.6 million people are infected with this chronic disease (Williams and Frater 725-728).
For the fast several years an AIDS vaccine has been the key focus in AIDS research. While the government sees the vaccine as a termination to the disease, but a portion of the public along with many renowned scientists from around the world would argue against a vaccine. The United Nations and the US military have threatened to administer a mandatory vaccine to children at the age of 12 and all military employees. Reports predict a massive resistance to a mandatory AIDS vaccine in the US. (www.newsmax.shtml) The Committtee to Protect Medical Freedom warned that the vaccine would infact put more people at risk of contracting the deadly disease.
PROBLEM DEVELOPMENT For over thirty years HIV and AIDS have presented historic challenges to the human nature, especially to our planet’s public health, scientific and medical communities. It is estimated that just in the United States between 900.000 and 950.000 persons are living with HIV and about one forth of those infected have not yet been diagnosed and are unaware of their infection. The number of people with AIDS is increasing as effective new drug therapies keep HIV-infected persons healthy longer and dramatically reduce the death rates. However in spite of extremely beneficial advances in the field of HIV-AIDS treatment in recent years the epidemic is far from being over. The Center for Disease Control in the United States has estimated that about 40.000 people become infected every year and most of these are young persons under the age of 25.
As research moved ahead and the cause of HIV/AIDS was finally understood, medicines were developed that delayed disability, prolonged life, and decreased the spread of HIV. A positive diagnosis no longer meant death within two years but a slower journey through the disease. However, this journey often came with increasing ill health and disability and devastating medical and drug expenses. Decades after the first AIDS cases baffled the medical community, no cure or preventive vaccine has been developed. With its cause and method of spreading now understood, HIV/AIDS is a preventable disease.
In order to end this pandemic, it is necessary the development of an effective, safe, and affordable vaccine that can prevent everyone in the world from getting the HIV infection. For more than two decades, researches from around the world have been working to create this vaccine, but so far, they haven’t been successful. The main factor that has slowed the effort to create an HIV vaccine is the cost, because companies won’t invest resources if they can’t anticipate how to recover their research, development, and production costs. That is why investing in HIV vaccine development has many risks for any profit-making company. This essay will analyze the main three reasons why it could not be possible for a company to invest in the creation of an HIV vaccine and then give it away free of charge to people who cannot afford it.
The reason is that it is actually a complicated disease with a wide range of symptoms. The final stage of HIV is Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome is th... ... middle of paper ... ...thbrushes, razors, needles for piercing or tattooing, and blades for cutting or scarring. Through all these years, we have been battling with the spreading of the disease and also helping the people who are infected fight for their lives. HIV/AIDS is so silent that no one can really know if they have it or not. No one can really know if they are accidentally transmitting it to someone else that is not aware that the other person is diagnosed with the disease.
Scientists only have a limited amount of time to test and trial these new vaccinations before humans are injected. Such a small frame of time is not enough to see the possible consequences and side effects the vaccine could possibly have in it and who may have an allergic reaction. Rushing vaccines often causes the vaccine to be unsafe and possibly cause worse side effects than the disease itself. In 1976 an Army recruit died because of the swine flu. This triggered panic of an epidemic within the United States and a vaccine was developed rapidly.
Conclusion A significant research investment has been made in helping to reduce the burden of HIV-1 infection worldwide. Antivirals help delay the onset of AIDS. Vaccine research has achieved some minor victories. Animal models allow more thorough and representative study of HIV-1. While HIV/AIDS still remains a major concern for the global community, continued research will doubtless bring further advances, helping to prevent infections before they occur and to provide better outcomes for those already infected with HIV-1.
There is no cure for HIV, but there are treatments to enable most people with the virus to live a long and healthy life. If anyone think he has been exposed to the virus within the last 72 hours (three days), anti-HIV medication post-exposure prophylaxis may stop him becoming infected. The quicker PEP is started the better The longer the wait, the less chance of it being effective. But the description is not accurate. PEP is a month-long treatment, which has serious side effects and is not guaranteed to work.
"They can't get jobs. They can't even afford proper food, forget about drugs." The same doctor who told me that 95% of the patients are HIV positive lamented that the only treatment she can offer is multivitamins and one antibiotic!!! How do we expect the younger generations to hope for a brighter future in this environment? I was told that many South African young people have a fatalistic, "I'm-going-to-die-anyway" attitude.