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brief paper on hiv disease in south africa essay
Eassy of the impact of HIV and AIDs on THE south African population
aids crisis south africa
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According to UNAIDS, (2013b), Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a virus that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) and can be transmitted in many ways – this includes contact with infected blood and bodily fluids; such as sharing of needles or drug injection equipment, through unprotected sex through, mother-to-child transmission during pregnancy or breast-feeding, and through receipt of infected blood transfusions. There is currently no cure for HIV/AIDS. Once an individual contracts HIV, he or she has it for life. HIV/AIDS is a major health concern in South Africa. HIV/AIDS has become an extensively spread virus that affects the human immune system. South African black women continue being one of the population greatest at risk for HIV infection, various health behaviours contribute to these women being at risk. HIV is perceived to be more prevalent in South Africa than anywhere else worldwide with 5.6 million people living with HIV, and 270,000 HIV correlated deaths recorded in 2011. Approximately 12.2% of the South African population are living with HIV/AIDS; when excluding children, that percentage of people affected with HIV/AIDS rises to 18% (UNAIDS, 2013b). According to Shisana, Rehle, Simbayi et al., (2012), HIV prevalence amongst 20-34 year-old black African women appears to be higher than all women of other age groups and race – the prevalence is 36%. The high HIV prevalence in women of this age group in South Africa is a results of a number of health behaviours which includes: not using condoms, not knowing their HIV/AIDS status, alcohol and recreational drug use, and having multiple sexual partners. HIV/AIDS weakens ones immune system, this causes black women who are affected by HIV to be more vulnerab...
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...heir risk of the community knowing their HIV status, stigma and the community rejecting them (Shisana, Rehle, Simbayi et al. 2012). Stigma leads to the reduction of motivation to be go test and know ones status and increases the chances that black women will act in response to their HIV status by denial. HIV/AIDS awareness gives emphasis to the link between HIV and death, this escalates denial and decreases the likelihood that black women with HIV will feel ‘empowered’ to implement active, positive coping strategies, as well as the use of condoms as this is the primary prevention to HIV when sexually active. Programs for volunteer counselling and testing thus need to go hand in hand with interventions that encourages ‘living positively with HIV’ to the community as a whole, and discourse an existing community culture of denial, stigma and silence surrounding HIV.
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.
As recently as 1990, there were some regions of the world that had remained relatively unscathed by AIDS. Today, however, there is not a single country around the world which has wholly escaped the AIDS epidemic. As the epidemic has matured, some of the developed nations which were hard hit by the epidemic in the 1980s such as the United States have reported a slowing in the rate of new infections and a stabilization among existing cases with lower mortality rates and an extension of post-diagnosis lifespan. However, despite the changing face of the global AIDS pandemic, one factor remains unchanged: no region of the world bears a higher AIDS-related burden than sub-Saharan Africa. This paper examines the demographic effects of AIDS in Africa, focusing on the hardest-hit countries of sub-Saharan Africa and considers the present and future impact of the AIDS epidemic on major demographic measures such as fertility, mortality, life expectancy, gender, age, and family structure.
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...
According to the CDC, almost 1.1 million people in the United States have HIV, yet almost 20% of those people are unaware that they are living with the condition (CDC, 2013c). When the HIV broke out almost 30 years ago in the United States, the number of new cases in a year was 130,000. Now, each year the new number of cases being presented is approximately 50,000 (CDC, 2013c). In locations like Sub-Saharan Africa, the statistics are higher. The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) states, “In 2011, an estimated 23.5 million people living with HIV resided in sub-Saharan Africa, representing 69% of the global HIV burden” (UNAIDS, 2012). The World Health Organization (WHO) reinforces this point by saying, “Sub-Saharan Africa is the most affected region [of HIV], with nearly 1 in every 20 adults living with HIV. Sixty nine per cent of all people living with HIV are living in this region” (WHO, 2013a). The statistics of infected people living in the United States is alarming but there are other countries, like Africa, which have higher rates of HIV due to very limited
HIV/AIDS is an illness that has been present for over three decades, all regions of the world are affected with this virus, but some regions such as the Sub-Saharan Africa are the worst hit with high incidence and prevalence. HIV is a preventable virus, it is commonly transmitted through unprotected sex, sharing drug injection equipment such as needles with someone that is HIV positive and through other body fluids such as blood, semen, rectal fluids, vaginal fluids and breast milk. South Africa has the largest number of people with HIV majority of these numbers being women. In the study by Rehle et al it is stated that in South Africa (SA) both men and women matured 15-49 years were evaluated to be 2.0 new diseases every year per 100 susceptible
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...
The prevalence of AIDs in the African countries has come to be more apparent as the rates of those who have AIDs has increased over the past few years. Zimbabwe is a third world country where many facilities are not available as well as health oriented programs, many people are living under deplorable conditions which also contributes to their risk of infection. Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome or AIDs caused by HIV, is a disease that is caused by sexual intercourse with those of who are infected with it, AIDs can also be caused by prenatal transmission, and if the mother were to have AIDs then the child would also be infected. The infection of AIDs causes the weakening of the person’s immune system, which then could cause a spiraling effect which would make the person susceptible to other diseases. Education and socio-economic problems are key in areas of the third worlds countries in which many resources are not there to take advantage of.
As a result, the virus has greatly affected people in countries across the world, especially Africa. In Africa there are thousands of medical facilities in South Africa and they all have a high occupancy rating. In South Africa today, 80% of patients hospitalized in facilities have HIV (“Impact of HIV and AIDS...”). People working in these facilities such as doctors and nurses put themselves at risk because they are at risk for getting HIV related illnesses. In Africa there is a high demand for treatment of the disease and the hospitals have very low resources and training to treat HIV patients. When HIV first started there were very little resources to use for the patients that needed help.
with HIV / AIDS are also the poorest. HIV / AIDS is now considered to
Africa is a region of the world often associated with HIV due to the infection’s enduring prevalence on the continent. Specifically, Sub-Saharan Africa is the area of the world with the most infected individuals, approximately 26.6 million with roughly 1.4 million new infections each year (Bowler; White). This equates to 2/3 of all HIV infected individuals around the world. In this region it is harder to obtain treatment than in other areas of the world, with only 41 percent of people living with HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa having access to ART (“Data”). A subset of Sub-Saharan Africa that has the highest epidemic rate is Southern Africa, which consists of nine countries. Table 1 lists the countries in Southern Africa and shows
This book covers a wide range of subtopics on the issue of HIV and AIDS prevalence in South Africa. The authors provide information in a neatly organized way that allows readers to easily find the information they are looking for. The book is divided into 7 sections with multiple chapters in each section. The sections are as follows: Birth of a rapidly growing epidemic, The virus, the human host and their interactions, HIV risk factors and prevention strategies, Focal groups for understanding the HIV epidemic, the impact of AIDS, Treating HIV, and What does the future hold? Sections 1, 3, 5, 6, and 7 will provide good background information on my topic for my paper.
In United States, the HIV epidemic reached its peak in the 1980s when the number of infected reached 130,000 people per year. Infected women ...
The Centers for disease control (CDC) has declared AIDS a global pandemic. No one person or group is safe from contracting this virus; knowledge, and safety is the only way you can protect yourself. However, the first black South African diagnosed with AIDS was in 1987, and currently South Africa is home to over 5.7 million people living with HIV/AIDS, making it the largest population on earth with people infected. (3)
South Africa is undergoing a transformation process after many years of one of the most brutal socio-political systems, the Apartheid; affecting every sector of the society including medical education and the delivery of healthcare services, (de Villiers, 1999). Apartheid was characterized by dividing the country according to the color of the skin, giving favoritism to the white man. Health care in South Africa was a dream until 1994 to the majority of the population which is black. With a more humanitarian social system in place, the country is trying to overcome the difficulties of present time, which is even harder after half a century of destruction, diseases and fraudulent administration. On the other hand, Aids and violence are the leading indicators regarding mortality rates of the South African population. There were over twenty one thousand murders in 2002 and almost eight million people are living with HIV/AIDS as of 2006, (Dixon, 2006).
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.