A Study in HIV/AIDS

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HIV/AIDS

What is HIV / AIDS?

Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, or AIDS, is the final, life-threatening stage of infection with the human immunodeficiency virus, which is transmitted from person to person sexually, through contact with blood (mainly via equipment used to inject illicit drugs and, rarely, via medical uses of blood), and perinatally (from mother to foetus or newborn during pregnancy, labour, and delivery, or after birth through breast-feeding).

Spatial Patterns

People Living With AIDS (2006)


From the map and the table, we can see that the prevalence of AIDS isn’t evenly or randomly spread around the world, but has certain patterns. It is more common in third world countries, especially India, Africa and South American countries. Although 2/3rd of the world’s AIDS patients are in Africa, there is a wide variation in Africa itself, from below 10,000 in Tunisia and Morocco, to 5 million in South Africa. There are more than 40 million people worldwide living with AIDS, 95% of whom are in developing countries. Although AIDS is prevalent in developing countries, it is also present in high levels in certain developed countries like USA. Others, like those in Europe and Australasia enjoy very low levels of AIDS patients.

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This is because AIDS had been brought under control in the developing countries through political action, intensive education, and expensive drug therapy. Some of the hardest hit areas are in Africa, with 2.5 million people dying in the Sub-Saharan region alone. Populations are being hit hard in countries like South Africa, Nigeria and Zimbabwe. There are many reasons for AIDS being more common in developing regions like India and Africa, such as:

  • Lack of family-planning and sex education
  • Lesser availability of contraceptives
  • Religious beliefs prevent people from using contraceptives
  • Male-dominated society causes inequality for women, and often, they have ...

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