The impact of HIV/AIDS.
In almost 3 decades nearly 25 million people have died from Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). (Impact of HIV/AIDS. http://www.globalhealth.org/hiv_aids/, retrieved 13 April, 2011) Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a lentvirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). AIDS is a condition in the humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive. Infection with HIV occurs by the transfer of blood, semen, vaginal fluid, pre-ejaculate, or breast milk. Within these bodily fluids, HIV is present as both free virus particles and virus within infected immune. The four major routes of transmission are unsafe sex, contaminated needles, breast milk, and transmission from an infected mother to her baby at birth (prenatal transmission). Screening of blood products for HIV has largely eliminated transmission through blood transfusions or infected blood products in the developed world. (HIV. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV, retrieved 13 April, 2011.)
“HIV infects primarily vital cells in the human immune system such as helper T cells (specifically CD4+ T cells), macrophages, and dendritic cells.[10] HIV infection leads to low levels of CD4+ T cells through three main mechanisms: First, direct viral killing of infected cells; second, increased rates of apoptosis in infected cells; and third, killing of infected CD4+ T cells by CD8 cytotoxic lymphocytes that recognize infected cells. When CD4+ T cell numbers decline below a critical level, cell-mediated immunity is lost, and the body becomes progressively more susceptible to opportunistic infections.
Most untreated people infected with HIV-1 eventually develop AIDS.[11] These individuals mostly die from opportunistic infections or malignancies associated with the progressive failure of the immune system.[12] HIV progresses to AIDS at a variable rate affected by viral, host, and environmental factors; most will progress to AIDS within 10 years of HIV infection: some will have progressed much sooner, and some will take much longer.[13][14] Treatment with anti-retrovirals increases the life expectancy of people infected with HIV. Even after HIV has progressed to diagnosable AIDS, the average survival time with antiretroviral therapy was estimated to be more than 5 years as of 2005.[15] Without antiretroviral therapy, someone who has AIDS typically dies within a year. (HIV. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV, retrieved 13 April, 2011.)
HIV/AIDS has complicated the fight against poverty, health improvement and development by the following:
- “Diminishing a person’s ability to support, work and provide for his or her family. At the same time, treatment and health-care costs related to HIV/AIDS consume household incomes. The combined effect of reduced income and increased costs impoverishes individuals and households.
- Deepening socioeconomic and gender disparities. Women are at high risk of infection and have few options for providing for their families. Children affected by HIV/AIDS, due to their own infection or parental illness or death, are less likely to receive an education, as they leave school to care for ailing parents and younger siblings.
- Straining the resources of communities – hospitals, social services, schools and businesses. Health care workers, teachers, and business and government leaders have been lost to HIV/AIDS. The impact of diminished productivity is felt on a national scale. (HIV/AIDS. http://www.globalhealth.org/hiv_aids/, retrieved 13 April, 2011.)”
The number of people living with HIV continues to rise despite global attention and intervention efforts.
- “In 2008, globally, about 2 million people died of AIDS, 33.4 million were living with HIV and 2.7 million people were newly infected with the virus.
- HIV infections and AIDS deaths are unevenly distributed geographically and the nature of the epidemics vary by region. Epidemics are abating in some countries and burgeoning in others. More than 90 percent of people with HIV are living in the developing world.3
- There is growing recognition that the virus does not discriminate by age, race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic status – everyone is susceptible. However, certain groups are at particular risk of HIV, including men who have sex with men (MSM), injecting drug users (IDUs), and commercial sex workers (CSWs).
- The impact of HIV/AIDS on women and girls has been particularly devastating. Women and girls now comprise 50 percent of those aged 15 and older living with HIV.1
- The impact of HIV/AIDS on children and young people is a severe and growing problem. In 2008, 430,000 children under age 15 were infected with HIV and 280,000 died of AIDS.1, 4 In addition, about 15 million children have lost one or both parents due to the disease.4
- There are effective prevention and treatment interventions, as well as efforts to develop new approaches, medications and vaccines.
- The sixth Millennium Development Goal (MDG) focuses on stopping and reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS by 2015.
Global funding is increasing, but global need is growing even faster – widening the funding gap. Services and funding are disproportionately available in developed countries. (HIV/AIDS. http://www.globalhealth.org/hiv_aids/, retrieved 13 April, 2011.)”
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