The authors worked for the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies which belongs to AIDS resea...
Black Americans and HIV/AIDS, The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, March 5, 2013. Web. 1 Apr 2014 .
McCree, D. H., Jones, K., & O'Leary, A. (2010). African Americans and HIV/AIDS Understanding and Addressing the Epidemic. New York: Springer.
...easures. In 1990 HIV-infected people were included in the Americans with Disabilities Act, making discrimination against people with AIDS for jobs, housing, and other social benefits illegal. Additionally, the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act established a community-funding program designed to assist in the daily lives of people living with AIDS. This congressional act was named in memory of a young man who contracted HIV through blood products and became a public figure for his courage in fighting the disease and community prejudice. The act is still in place, although continued funding for such social programs is threatened by opposition in the U.S. Congress.
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. It was discovered in a blood sample from a man in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Looking further into the genetics of this blood sample researchers suggested that it had originated from a virus going back to the late 1940’s or early 1950’s. In 1999, researchers had discovered that HIV is derived from chimpanzees native to west equatorial Africa. This epidemic is spreading throughout countries and infecting 14 thousand victims every day. Learning about HIV includes knowing how to contract the virus, understanding most of the people it affects, how to prevent the spread of it, and knowing what treatments are available.
HIV can be transmitted via the exchange of a variety of body fluids from infected individuals, such as blood, breast milk, semen and vaginal secretions. Individuals cannot become infected through ordinary day-to-day contact such as kissing, hugging, shaking hands, or sharing personal objects, food or water. The spread of HIV from person to person is called HIV transmission. HIV transmission is possible at any stage of HIV infection, even if an HIV-infected person has no symptoms of HIV. The spread of HIV from an HIV-infected woman to her child during pregnancy, childbirth, or breastfeeding is called mother-to-child transmission of HIV. In the United States, HIV is spread mainly by having sex with or sharing drug injection equipment with someone who is infected with HIV. To reduce your risk of HIV infection, use condoms correctly and consistently during sex, limit your number of sexual partners, and never share drug injection equipment. Mother-to-child tra...
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. The epidemic of HIV is severely impacting the communities of color, particularly young men and women. Roughly about sixty percent of new infections continue to be among men having a sexual intercourse with another man. The National HIV Prevention Committee suggests that there has been resurgence in unsafe behaviors among some communities of gay men. With all the research and evidence available from various government and non-profit organizations dealing with HIV and AIDS prevention far too many Americans believe that the epidemic is over in the United States. Among minorities, women, and the poor the worst may yet to be come. African Americans represent 12 percent of the American population, which is about 35.000.000 people, but about 50 percent of the new HIV cases (www.statehealthfacts.org). In the United States some 80 percent of all women infected are women of color. In addition African-American women are becoming infected at younger age compared to their white peers primarily through heterosexual contact. Hispanics present about 14 percent of the US population, about 40.322.930 people, and 20 percent of HIV-AIDS cases. The HIV infection rate among Native Americans is approximately one and a half time that of whites and they die from AIDS much faster than the whites due to late diagnosis.
Millett, G., et al. "Focusing “down low”: Bisexual black men, heterosexual black women, and HIV risk." Journal of the National Medical Association 97.7 (2005): 52S-59S.
HIV is a battle that has existed for a long time and is still an uphill battle for those affected. This sickness has not only hurt the people but it has grown to affect the economy and politics of numerous countries and regions like America and South Africa. Therefore, the stance on the resilience has grown over the past forty years. It has existed and grown and has come to be one of the biggest social issues in the world. It has become so intertwined with society that it has had lasting affects on all divisions of the world and those divisions are economic divisions, political division, and social divisions within Africa, America, and Asia.
According to amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, “more than 35 million people live with HIV/AIDS worldwide, 3.3 million of them are under the age of 15. 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.
“Two decades after HIV first appeared an estimated 30 million people worldwide have contracted the virus; 11.7 million people have dies of AIDS” (Frankowski xi). This deadly virus has continually and rapidly spread to all different people. Around the world this virus is a major problem and is affecting more women and children then ever before. Although when this disease first appeared it was male dominated, but they have passed it on to the women and in which case they pass on to their children when they are in the womb.
A person who is HIV-infected carries the virus in certain body fluids, including blood, semen, vaginal secretions, and breast milk. The virus can be transmitted only if such HIV-infected fluids enter the bloodstream of another person. This kind of direct entry can occur (1) through the linings of the vagina, rectum, mouth, and the opening at the tip of the penis; (2) through intravenous injection with a syringe; or (3) through a break in the skin, such as a cut or sore. Usually, HIV is transmitted through:
“Basic Facts about HIV/AIDS.” The Foundation for AIDS Research. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Oct. 2012. .
Spink, Gemma. "AIDS." AVERTing HIV and AIDS. 23 Dec 2009. Web. 11 Jan 2010. .
HIV positive women were first reported in the late 1980s. AIDS is the final stage of HIV where the immune system is compromised. The virus causes severe damage to the immune system that even the simplest yeast infection can be deadly because the body will not have a functional immune system. HIV positive women who are still healthy and did not progress into AIDS, could have a normal pregnancy. However, HIV positive mothers could transmit the virus to their unborn child during pregnancy, this is known as mother to child transmission (MTC). Stoto states that in the United States, over 6,000 HIV infected women give birth every year and about one-third is estimated to give birth to HIV positive babies (Stoto1). HIV positive born children without any medication will not live up to an adolescent age and up to 50% can die within their first year. Stine points out without medication, “HIV-infected children lived to an average age of 9” (Stine 347). This became a serious concern in the scientific community due to the risks involved for the children.