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The spread of HIV
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AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) is a blood born disease that was first recognized in America in the early 1980’s, around the time Rock Hudson passed away. It is believed that it was first passed thru to humans by monkey’s in Africa. “The battle between humans and disease was nowhere more bitterly fought than here in the fetid equatorial climate, where heat and humidity fuel the generation of new life forms. One historian has suggested that humans, who first evolved in Africa eons ago migrated north to Asia and Europe simple to get to climates that were less hospitable to the deadly microbes the tropics so efficiently spread.” (Shilts, 5)
“HIV may already infect one to two million Americans and spreads to forty thousand more people each year.” (Klitzman, 7) This disease wreaks havoc in places like Africa, Europe, South America, Asia, and the United States, as well as countless other places around the world. “With Modern roads and jet travel, no corner of the earth was very remote anymore; never again could diseases linger undetected for centuries among a distant people without finding some route to fan out across the planet.” (Shilts, 5)
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It can also be transferred between people through tainted blood transfusions as well as the sharing of infected needles among users. AIDS is a devastating and debilitating disease that may not show up for a period of ten years or longer after the original contact. By this time it might be too late to do anything about it , although, there are various cocktails of drugs that could control the disease and extend life for a considerable length of
AIDS/HIV was first recognized as a new disease in the US when clinicians in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco began to see young, homosexual men with Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) and Kaposi 's sarcoma (KS), unusual diseases for young adults which were not known to be immunosuppressed. These discoveries led to increased fear throughout the US since many people didn’t know what caused AIDS, how it could be contracted, or even what to call it.
2) Moore, J. (2004). The puzzling origins of AIDS: Although no one explanation has been universally accepted, four rival theories provide some important lesson. American Scientist, 92(6), 540-547. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/stable/27858482
Different people define success in many different ways. What is considered success by one person may be viewed as failure by another person. Randy Shilts, a homosexual newspaper reporter / author, attempts to make fundamental changes in America’s opinion on AIDS. In Randy Shilts’s essay, "Talking AIDS to Death," he speaks of his experiences as an "AIDS celebrity." At the core of Shilts’s essay is the statement, "Never before have I succeeded so well; never before have I failed so miserably"(221). Shilts can see his accomplishments from two points of view- as a success and as a failure. Despite instant fame, Shilts is not satisfied with the effects his writings has on the general public. Shilts’s "success" and reasons for failure can both be considered when one decides whether or not his efforts were performed in vain.
The spread of aids threatens our population daily. Lives lost to it number over 12 million, including 2 mil...
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is a chronic, potentially life-threatening condition caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). AIDS weakens the immune system hampering the body’s defense mechanisms. AIDS is known to be a deadly disease, especially if it is not treated in a timely manner. AIDS and HIV is an epidemic that is increasing among the African American population with roots tracing back to Africa, AIDS and HIV needs greater exposure and more awareness within the African American community and in the homosexual community.
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 that 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.
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a syndrome caused by the human immunodeficiency virus, characterized by a depressed immune system and the presence of one or more opportunistic diseases. AIDS is the final stage of HIV. You cannot be born with AIDS; AIDS is a disease that must be gained. When HIV is turned into AIDS, the immune system has been increasingly damaged by the virus which puts the immune system at risk for opportunistic infections. When you have AIDS, you are still HIV positive. So if one was to engage in coitus with a person with AIDS, the HIV infection can still be transmitted (Greenberg, Bruess, and Conklin, 2011). “On average, the survival time for African-Americans with AIDS is lower than for other racial or ethnic groups.” (Johnson, K. MD, 2012)
Half of the world’s cases are found in what is referred to as the AIDS belt, a chain of countries in eastern and southern Africa that is home to two percent of the global population. The main vehicle for spreading HIV throughout Africa is heterosexual intercourse. In contrast, this is the opposite compared to the U.S. where the virus is usually transmitted through homosexual intercourse or contaminated syringes shared by drug users. Besides heterosexual intercourse, HIV transmission through transfusion and contaminated medical equipment is common in sub-Saharan Africa. Africans infected with HIV die much sooner after diagnosis than HIV-infected people in other parts of the world.
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...
The AIDS virus is the most common disease, and with no cure, an infected person will die. It is estimated that 90 to 95 percent of AIDS infections occur in developing countries where the world’s worst living conditions exist.
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)
In 1981, a new fatal, infectious disease was diagnosed--AIDS (Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome). It began in major cities, such as New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and San Francisco. People, mostly homosexual men and intravenous drug users, were dying from very rare lung infections or from a cancer known as Kaposi’s sarcoma. They have not seen people getting these diseases in numerous years. Soon, it also affected hemophiliacs, blood recipients, prostitutes and their customers, and babies born from AIDS-infected women. AIDS was soon recognized as a worldwide health emergency, and as a fatal disease with no known cure, that quickly became an epidemic. When high-profile victims began to contract the virus, such as basketball star Magic Johnson, the feeling spread quickly that anyone, not just particular groups of people, could be at risk. AIDS impairs the human body’s immune system and leaves the victim susceptible to various infections. With new research, scientists think that the disease was first contracted through a certain type of green monkey in Africa, then somehow mutated into a virus that a human could get. AIDS is a complicated illness that may involve several phases. It is caused by a virus that can be passed from person to person. This virus is called HIV, or Human Immuno-deficiency Virus. In order for HIV to become full-blown AIDS, your T-cell count (number of a special type of white-blood cells that fight off diseases) has to drop below 200, or you have to get one of the symptoms of an AIDS-induced infection.
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a fatal physical condition that is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The virus damages the human body’s immune system, so that the body cannot protect itself from bacteria, viruses, and prions that cause diseases. With severely lowered defenses, AIDS patients die from common illnesses such as pneumonia, diarrhea, cold, and tuberculosis. The HIV virus does not directly attack its victim; the disease that patients suffer from after receiving the virus is what hurts and kills them. AIDS is a disease that is transmitted easily through unprotected sexual intercourse, sharing of needles, blood transfusion, and childbirth.
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.