Essay Preview: AidsReport this essayJennaCurrent IssuesMay 7th 2008AIDSBy the early 1980’s it became apparent that an epidemic, of an unknown disease with no cure, was in the making. This disease would soon be known as the fatal epidemic of AIDS. AIDS is the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome that develops from the long exposure to HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus). The 41 gay men first diagnosed with AIDS were soon joined by others. There were 452 cases by the end of 1982. The cases reported had the following breakdown; gender : males (428) & females (24); race/ethnicity : Caucasian “White” Americans (278), African-Americans (86), Hispanics (54), Haitians (27) & Others (7); Age: <25 years old (23), 25-44 years old (362), >45 years old (62) & unknown (5). This shows that aids truly doesn’t discriminate against any one type of person, it affects us all.
The AIDS virus is taking a major toll on countries other than the United States. The extent of the AIDS crisis is only now becoming clear in many African countries, as increasing numbers of people with HIV are becoming ill. In the absence of massively expanded prevention, treatment and care efforts, it is expected that the AIDS death toll in sub-Saharan Africa will continue to rise. This means that impact of the AIDS epidemic on these societies will be felt most strongly in the course of the next ten years and beyond. Millions of People have died because of the disease and more will if anything isn’t done about it.
This transmission route is particularly relevant to intravenous drug users, hemophiliacs and recipients of blood transfusions and blood products. Sharing and reusing syringes contaminated with HIV-infected blood represents a major risk for infection with HIV. Needle sharing is the cause of one third of all new HIV-infections in North America, China, and Eastern Europe. The risk of being infected with HIV from a single prick with a needle that has been used on an HIV-infected person is thought to be about 1 in 150 (see table above). Post-exposure prophylaxis with anti-HIV drugs can further reduce this risk.[46] This route can also affect people who give and receive tattoos and piercings. Universal precautions are frequently not followed in both sub-Saharan Africa and much of Asia because of both a shortage of supplies and inadequate training. The WHO estimates that approximately
1,000 infected people in Africa are at risk: 1)
2.8 million infected people globally in 2010 were in sub-Saharan countries. It is estimated that 2.7 million people would die in a pandemic.[47] In Sub-Saharan Africa, a half billion persons had been infected with HIV during that time and only 1.3 million had been infected with HIV in the United States.[48] More than 1.5 million people were infected with H3N2 among the WHO population in 2000. An estimated 4 million African and Central Asian persons were infected. Infected persons were transferred to a number of health care facilities throughout Africa and were treated at the WHO with oral and injectable antibiotics[49] including anti-HIV drugs and/or lysosomal rechallenge (HRC-RR) therapy.[50] The majority of patients at low doses are at risk.[51] Because of a need to increase safety of HIV medications among the HIV-infected, inactivated communities, and for the prevention and treatment of AIDS, the first step is to ensure that these persons receive appropriate care. To reduce the risk that HIV can infect an individual, WHO recommends a series of follow-up visits by WHO health workers. The first visit focuses on HIV in persons who have received the immunosuppressive products developed by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), providing information to patients concerning their immunodeficiency status and the development of medicines necessary to defend against the risk of HIV infection, including: the vaccine
the immunodeficiency tests
the hepatitis C vaccine (HCV)
the immune globulin test (HLT)
therapeutic injections of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs)
the immunoglobulin test (IgE)
oral immunodeferences
the oral anti-infection precautions
non-steroidal anti-inflammatory therapies (NSAIDs) are needed to reduce the risk that the immune globulin test results may indicate an allergic reaction to an anti-HIV medicine. The first step is to ensure that the individual receives appropriate care, including blood and genital swab testing, which may be needed to confirm the diagnosis and to determine whether to continue with the medication regimen. The third step is to ensure that non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are administered during the first month. Some vaccines are more helpful than others for the prevention of AIDS because they do not inhibit the production of HCP-1 antibodies, which might be detected in antibody-free specimens. Finally, some NSAIDs have been implicated in the development of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. One FDA-approved study indicates that NSAIDs inhibit HCP-1 activity in one to two-thirds of cases. One of the FDA’s recent FDA-approved NSAIDs—a generic version of NSAID Zemep—has been shown to be associated with a reduction in viral load at concentrations of up to 50%. Further recent safety studies suggest that the use of NSAIDs in patients whose hepatitis B virus infection, or HCV, seronegative status in the first 12 months prior to first admission to the ICU is in fact associated with a reduction in HCV transmission to a tertiary care unit.[52] The NIH-NIH Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (http://www.nih