AIDS is a dangerous disease caused by a virus known as HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) that has led to the deaths of millions of individuals around the world, especially in sub-Saharan African countries such as Nigeria. The reason the disease is so dangerous is because it essentially destroys an infected individual’s immune system, leaving him or her to become more prone to contracting dangerous infections and cancers that cannot be fought off due to the lack of T helper cells. The HIV/AIDS epidemic officially began in Nigeria in 1985 when the first two cases of the disease were identified in the country’s largest city, Lagos; they were later reported to an international AIDS conference in 1986 (Adeyi, Kanki, Odutolu, and Idoko, 18). Though nine HIV testing centers were constructed and the National Expert Advisory Committee on AIDS (NEACA) was created by the Federal Ministry of Health in 1987, it was not until democracy was established in 1999 under President Olusegun Obansanjo that the country began a serious widespread effort to combat the disease (Adeyi, et al, 19). During this time gap, the number of infected Nigerians had greatly increased for various reasons, including Nigerians’ insufficient knowledge about the disease, shortage of medication, and lack of HIV testing.
The spread of HIV/AIDS through mother-to-child transmission has had an interesting development over recent decades. In the past, most infected Nigerians were males, such as those who engaged in homosexual relations and intercourse with sex workers. However, in recent years the number has increased. Now the majority of adults living with HIV are female, which is estimated to be about 57% of Nigerians (Adeyi, et al, 349). This is an imperative issue beca...
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...nt procedures should be carried out. Additionally, having a collaboration would avoid the issue of having an organization work outside of the government’s control. Since the Ministry of Health will be involved, there will be oversight to ensure that these health centers do adhere to proper standards. Lastly, this policy is recommended because it directly tackles the underlying issues of why mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS continues in Nigeria, which are the lack of health centers for pregnant women in rural locations and need for medical resources that the country cannot afford on its own. Overall, success of this policy will be measured based on how quickly these health centers can be built, whether the government can effectively cooperate with other organizations, and if there is decrease in the number of children infected with HIV through their mothers.
To help the women in Africa in their struggle with the problems caused by the AIDS pandemic, we must first help the women have a voice and gender equality in the developed countries and the organizations of which these developed countries are a part of.
What would you say if I asked you to tell me what you think is causing the death of so many people in the horn of Africa? AIDS? Starvation? War? Would it surprise you if I told you that it all boils down to the women of Africa? Kofi Annan attempts to do just this in his essay “In Africa, Aids Has a Woman's Face.” Annan uses his work to tell us that women make up the “economic foundation of rural Africa” and the greatest way for Africa to thrive is through the women of Africa's freedom, power, and knowledge.
AIDS is slowly becoming the number one killer across the globe. Throughout numerous small countries, AIDS has destroyed lives, taken away mothers, and has left hopeless children as orphans. The problem remains that funding for the diseases’ medical research is limited to none. In the country Brazil, HIV/AIDS has been compared to the bubonic plague, one of the oldest yet, most deadly diseases to spread rapidly across Europe (Fiedler 524). Due to this issue, Brazil’s government has promised that everyone who has been diagnosed with either HIV or AIDS will receive free treatment; however, this treatment does not include help in purchasing HIV medications, that “carry astronomical price tags” (Fiedler 525). Generic drug companies have been able to produce effective HIV medications that are not as costly if compared to the prices given by the huge pharmaceutical companies. In contrast, the U.S. government has now intervened with these generic companies hindering them from making HIV medications, which may not be as efficient if made by the pharmaceutical companies. Not only are these drug companies losing thousands of dollars against generic drug companies, but also tremendous profit that is demanded for marketing these expensive drugs as well. “How many people must die without treatment until the companies are willing to lower their prices, or to surrender their patients so generic makers can enter market? (Fiedler 525).” With this question in mind, what ways can we eliminate the HIV/AIDS epidemic across the world? With research, education, testing, and funding we can prevent the spread of HIV to others and hopefully find a cure.
Statistics have been show a frightening increase in AIDS/HIV cases. As of the year 2012, South Africa has had the most cases of HIV/AIDS coming to a total of 6,070,800 ("Country Comparison :: HIV/AIDS”). This is a huge contributing factor to this conspira...
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) was first recognized as a new disease in 1981 when increasing numbers of young homosexual men succumbed to unusual opportunistic infections and rare malignancies (Gallant49).During this time, many people were contacting this disease because it was not discovered yet and people did not have knowledge about it.Scientists believe HIV came from a particular kind of chimpanzee in Western Africa. Humans contracted this disease when they hunted and ate infected animals. A first clue came in 1986 when a morphologically similar but antigenically distinct virus was found to cause AIDS in patients in western Africa (Goosby24). During this time, scientists had more evidence to support their claim about this disease. Once discovered this disease was identified as a cause of what has since become one of the most devastating infectious diseases to have emerged in recent history (Goosby101). This disease was deadly because it was similar to the Black Death, it was killing majority of the population. Since its first identification almost three decades ago, the pandemic form of HIV-1 has infected at least 60 million people and caused more than 25 million deaths ...
Although the sub-Saharan region accounts for just 10% of the world’s population, 67% (22.5 million) of the 33.4 million people living with HIV/AIDS in 1998 were residents of one of the 34 countries of sub-Saharan Africa, and of all AIDS deaths since the epidemic started, 83% have occurred in sub-Saharan Africa (Gilks, 1999, p. 180). Among children under age 15 living with HIV/AIDS, 90% live in sub-Saharan Africa as do 95% of all AIDS orphans. In several of the 34 sub-Saharan nations, 1 out of every 4 adults is HIV-positive (UNAIDS, 1998, p. 1). Taxing low-income countries with health care systems inadequate to handle the burden of non-AIDS related illnesses, AIDS has devastated many of the sub-Saharan African economies. The impact of AIDS on the region is such that it is now affecting demographics - changing mortality and fertility rates, reducing lifespan, and ultimately affecting population growth.
The author mentions a few key take away main points. First of all, solutions must address the underlying causes of HIV risk among women. This mainly includes poverty and disempowerment because women in lower living standar...
Access to health care in Ethiopia has left many people without proper health care and eventual death. Millions of people living in Ethiopia die because of the lack of access to the health care system; improving the access to the healthcare system in Ethiopia can prevent many of the deaths that occur, but doing so will pose a grueling and challenging task. According to Chaya (2012), poor health coverage is of particular concern in rural Ethiopia, where access to any type of modern health institution is limited at best (p. 1). If citizen of Ethiopia had more accessibility of the healthcare system more individuals could be taught how to practice safe health practices. In Ethiopia where HIV, and maternal and infant mortality rates are sky high, more education on the importance of using the healthcare system and makin...
By the year 2000, 58 million people have been infected by HIV/AIDS and alarming numbers such as 22 million would have already died. And the epidemic continues to spread. HIV/AIDS historically is considered to be one of the longest running worldwide epidemics that we have ever seen, and figures cannot be placed on the true death tolls or estimation of the damage as the cycle still is yet to reach an end (Whiteside 2002). With Africa being the worst hit continent in the world in terms of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the severity of it’s prevalence; one can only begin to question whether HIV/AIDS and poverty and directly connected or the inter-linkages exacerbate one or the other. This paper aims to argue that HIV/AIDS is a manifestation of poverty, and simultaneously poverty contributes to growing HIV/AIDS epidemic. Development in response both to poverty reduction and to HIV/AIDS is complicated when both have multi-dimensional and multi-faceted impacts on a society, whether it be social, economic or human development impacts. This paper will argue that pre-existing socio economic conditions within a country such as high levels of poverty, poor sanitation, malnutrition, environmental degradation and poor public healthcare systems and limited access to preventative care are crucial factors in contributing to the transfer of the infection (Pasteur: 2000, Mann: 1999).
The Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, commonly known as HIV/AIDS is a disease, with which the human immune system, unlike in other disease, cannot cope. AIDS, which is caused by the HIV virus, causes severe disorder of the immune system and slowly progresses through stages which disable the body’s capability to protect and instead makes it vulnerable for other infections. The first blood sample to contain HIV was drawn in 1959 in Zaire, Africa while molecular genetics have suggested that the epidemic first began in the 1930s (Smallman & Brown, 2011). Currently, according to the Joint UN Program on HIV/AIDS, 35.3 million people worldwide are living with HIV. In 2012, an estimated 2.3 million people became newly infected with the virus and 1.6 million people lost their lives to AIDS (Fact Sheet, UNAIDS). It is due to the globalized international society that a disease which existed in one part of the world has managed to infect so many around the world. Globalization is narrowly defined by Joseph Stiglitz as "the removal of barriers to free trade and the closer integration of national economies" (Stiglitz, 2003). Globalization has its effects in different aspects such as economy, politics, culture, across different parts of the world. Like other aspects, globalization affects the health sector as well. In a society, one finds different things that connect us globally. As Barnett and Whiteside point out (2000), “health and wellbeing are international concerns and global goods, and inherent in the epidemic are lessons to be learned regarding collective responsibility for universal human health” (Barnett & Whiteside, 2000). Therefore, through all these global connections in the international society, t...
Stoto, Michael A., Donna A. Almario, and Marie C. McCormick. Reducing the Odds: Preventing Perinatal Transmission of HIV in the United States. Washington, D.C.: National Academy, 1999. Print.
Yao, J., Murray, A.T. and Agadjanian, V., 2013. A geographical perspective on access to sexual and reproductive health care for women in rural Africa. Social Science & Medicine (1982), 96, 60
Without proper knowledge and equipment, it is very difficult to prevent the spread of AIDS. Ever since the illness was discovered thirty years ago, it has taken the lives of thirty million people and affected the lives of many, many more. The AIDS pandemic has been and still is most severe in third-world countries in sub-Saharan Africa. It has impacted the economies of entire nations by crippling and killing individuals in the most productive years of their lives (“HIV/AIDS”). AIDS greatly influences the government sector, agricultural sector, private corporations, and individual households.
The emergence of HIV/AIDS is viewed globally as one of the most serious health and developmental challenges our society faces today. Being a lentivirus, HIV slowly replicates over time, attacking and wearing down the human immune system subsequently leading to AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome) at which point the affected individual is exposed to life threatening illnesses and eventual death. Despite the fact that a few instances of this disease have been accounted for in all parts of the world, a high rate of the aforementioned living with HIV are situated in either low or medium wage procuring nations. The Sub-Saharan region Africa is recognized as the geographic region most afflicted by the pandemic. In previous years, people living with HIV or at risk of getting infected did not have enough access to prevention, care and treatment neither were they properly sensitized about the disease. These days, awareness and accessibility to all the mentioned (preventive methods, care etc.) has risen dramatically due to several global responses to the epidemic. An estimated half of newly infected people are among those under age 25(The Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic). It hits hard as it has no visible symptoms and can go a long time without being diagnosed until one is tested or before it is too late to manage.
... diseases such as AIDS are also becoming a problem in places like Africa. Knowledge of how to prevent these diseases is not widely known, so an increasing number of people are infected. More attention needs to be placed on adequate health care and technology in these countries. While these third world societies may not have the resources with which to implement these changes, more advanced societies certainly do.