HIV Among Aboriginal Peopls

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HIV / Aids among aboriginal people in Canada


CONTENTS

        INTRODUCTION          3

WHAT IS HIV/AIDS          4

HOW IS HIV/AIDS CONTRACTED          5

ABROGINAL PEOPLE ARE MORE AT RISK          6

WOMEN ARE HARDEST HIT          8

PREVENTION          10

CONCLUSION  ………………………………...........12

 BIBLIOGRAPHY          14

Abstract

        The Aboriginal people of Canada are over-represented in the HIV and AIDS

statistics, they face ongoing challenges, including stigma and discrimination, coping with histories of abuse, and confidentiality concerns, compared with the rest of the population.

Introduction

        Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, or AIDS, is a very recognizable disease in Canada and all other parts of the globe. Being one of the most deadly diseases to man, AIDS is feared because it brings certain death and currently, there is no cure. Unlike other diseases such as Tuberculosis and Malaria, AIDS is actually not the causal factor of death. Instead, other viruses infect the body’s cells and this leads to death, but only after AIDS has totally incapacitated the immune system. The majority of AIDS patients die from pneumonia, while some suffer various other infections of cancers and tumours (Health Canada Agency, 2010).

        Historically, Aboriginal people have been dramatically affected by epidemics of

infectious disease. Today, levels of morbidity and mortality from such illnesses are much

higher than in the broader Canadian population.  The HIV/AIDS pandemic continues to grow and threaten Aboriginal Peoples throughout Canada. The last decade has seen a steady rise in Aboriginal AIDS cases in Canada. Some studies have shown that as many as twenty percent of 16,000 AIDS cases in this country may be Aboriginal. In 2005, Aboriginal people represented an estimated 200 to 400 new HIV infections that year, according to Canada's Public Health Agency. At the end of 2005, there was an estimated 3,600 to 5,100 Aboriginal people living with the disease (Statistics Canada, 2006).    There are many reasons that these statistics are staggering and these concepts will be explored along with what needs to be done in order to help fight against this travesty.

What is HIV/AIDS?

        Aids also known as Human Immunodeficiency Virus is caused by the virus HIV which destroys a type of defence cell in the body called a CD4 helper lymphocyte. These lymphocytes are part of the body's immune system, the defence system that fights infectious diseases. However, as HIV destroys these lymphocytes, people with the virus begin to get serious infections that they normally would not —that is, they become immune deficient. The HIV disease slowly eats away at the immune system, which opens up the risk of day-to-day infections usually the body, can fight off easily, struggle to do so under the new circumstances. The virus HIV infects cells of the human immune system and destroys them or stops them from working which therefore increases the vulnerability to infections and cancers to take over (Public Health Agency, 2007).

        The process in which HIV targets the immune system is a very simple step. The immune system rests on the shoulders of T4 cells, a critical component of lymphocytes. The receptor molecule of these cells is a molecule called CD4, and this molecule is the reason HIV may infect a T4 cell. HIV contains a co receptor called CD26, which enables it to bind with CD4, and gain entrance through a T4 cells membrane (Jackson, Reimer, 2005). The cell is then destroyed as HIV engulfs it.

                 Because their immune systems are weakened, people who have AIDS are unable to fight off many infections, particularly tuberculosis and other kinds of otherwise rare infections of the lung (such as Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia), the surface covering of the brain (meningitis), or the brain itself (encephalitis). People who have AIDS tend to keep getting sicker, especially if they are not taking antiviral medications properly (Jackson, Reimer, 2005).

                  AIDS can affect every body system. The immune defect caused by having too few CD4 cells also permits some cancers that are stimulated by viral illness to occur — some people with AIDS get forms of lymphoma and a rare tumour of blood vessels in the skin called Kaposi's sarcoma. Because AIDS is fatal, it is important that doctors detect HIV infection as early as possible so a person can take medication to delay the onset of AIDS (Jackson, Reimer, 2005).

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How is AIDS/HIV Contracted?

        Though the virus HIV is the premature stage of the disease AIDS, both remain very similar and are transmitted in the same way. HIV/AIDS, has been rumoured to be transmitted through physical contact, the air, and even through kissing, all of which proved to be false. Scientists now urge that after extensive testing, there is strong evidence to support the theory that AIDS is only transmitted in three different ways: 1.) sexual intercourse, whether vaginal or anal, with an infected person; 2.) exposure to infected blood or blood products; 3.) and from an infected mother ...

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