Prevention for HIV/AIDS :: Diseases Health Medical Essays

Prevention for human immunodeficiency virus/ help Although anti-viral therapy exists to support people coping with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and AIDS, the AIDS epidemic is not over. Though it is not prevalent in the Untied States, 2.1 million people died of AIDS by 1999. Half a million children down the stairs the age of fifteen are HIV positive, mostly infected through mother-to-child transmission or stirual assault (2). Ninety percent of HIV infections perish the developing countries, leaving the poor and struggling to cope with the epidemic (3). Heterosexual infection is the most common form of infection in Africa and Asia, especially in women. Elsewhere, infection through sex with a bisexual or drug infected partner, drug injection with dirty needles, blood transfusion and heterosexual sex are typical (2). Overall, the primary forms of transmission occur through unprotected sexual behavior, sharing needles, home tattooing, and through birth, from mother to child (5). An infectious disease, HIV must enter the blood stream of a person for transmission. It enters through bodily fluid, such as blood, semen, vaginal fluid, and breast milk. The disease infects cells in the body, especially CD4 cells, a type of white blood cells. Also known as T-cells, CD4 cells are crucial in maintaining the human immune system in egis from infectious diseases (5). By destroying the white blood cells, HIV causes a sever breakdown of the bodys immune system, leaving the body vulnerable, fragile and unable to protect against whatsoever disease they are exposed to. When the immune system becomes severely damaged AIDS is diagnosed by the contraction of specific diseases such as tuberculosis and toxoplasmosis (5). in one case diagnosed with AIDS, the virus never leaves the body, leaving the immune system to deteriorate until it is unable to fight off the diseases anymore, letting them take over the body. Major investigate and pharmaceutic companies continue to place precedence on the search for a vaccine or cure it is estimated that it will take another ten to fifteen eld to find a cure or vaccine for HIV/AIDS. Methods for HIV prevention need to be a priority in medical research prevention is the first step to slowing an epidemic, and an interest in vaginal microbicides, a new form of female prevention, could result in having them on the foodstuff in a third of the time it would take to discover a vaccine (1).