A Study in HIV/AIDS

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.

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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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 to obey if the man demands intercourse
Lots of cases of rape in lawless or war-torn regions, which promotes the spread of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs)
Poverty causes a lot of prostitution, which also promotes the quick spreading of STDs
Poverty and illiteracy promotes use of drugs, and the syringes used by drug addicts often are infected
Lack of proper medical facilities and sterilised instruments might result in infection during blood transfusions.

Impacts and Consequences

Social Consequences

Shame and social ostracism are the main problems patients of AIDS and their relatives face. The first impact is the shock of discovering a person is HIV positive. This often leads to rejection, isolation and abuse. In addition to the distress this brings, discrimination by employers, insurance companies and others can cause financial problems. Illness in a family usually leads to loss of income. This may be because a breadwinner dies or is too sick to work, or because a family member leaves work to care for the sick relative. At the same time, household spending increases because money and time is spent on caring for the sick family member.

Young girls may drop out of school to tend to ailing parents, look after household duties or care for younger siblings. When their partners or fathers die of AIDS, women may be left without land, housing or other assets. For example, in a Ugandan survey, one in four widows reported their property was seized after their partner died. A woman may also be prevented from using her property or inheritance for her family’s benefit.

Economic Consequences in Companies

Demographic Impacts

The population structure of badly-hit countries can change drastically due to deaths caused by AIDS.

As seen from the population structure models above, the hardest ages are below 5, and in the middle-aged, economically active region. This is because most adults get infected and die about 10-15 years into their sexually-active age. However, many children are born infected, due to infected parents, or get infected later through breast-feeding, and die very young, as they are susceptible to diseases at that time. AIDS also causes a great change in the death rate and life expectancy of a country. The graphs below show the great extent of this impact.

(above) – Estimated Impact of AIDS on Infant Mortality rates in Africa (2010)

(below) – Estimated Impact of AIDS on Life Expectancy in Africa (2000 – 2010)

Measures to Curb the Spread & Effects

AIDS has been brought slightly under control in developed countries through political action, intensive education, and expensive drug therapy. But the disease continues to ravage other parts of the world. Many measures need to be taken on a personal and global scale to prevent the spread of this disease. Personal cautions include:

Safe sex – one must perform sexual intercourse with only one partner, and use condoms during the act
No drugs – drug needles are a very common vector for HIV. One must refrain from using drugs, especially those injected using syringes.
Proper care during medical procedures – during medical procedures involving the transfer of blood, proper sterilised instruments must be used, as people are most likely to get infected when exposed to blood from infected people, even if it is only traces on a syringe.

Refraining from homosexuality – homosexuality, which involves anal intercourse, is a very common cause of HIV.
Donate to institutes which take care of such people, or carry out research about HIV /AIDs.

Measures taken on a larger scale include:

Sex education and spreading knowledge about contraceptives and sexually transmitted diseases.
Making contraceptives available freely
Better medical facilities which use sterilised instruments
Use of Posters and other media to reach out to all the people, especially teenagers about these diseases and prevention techniques

The society must not ostracize these patients, but instead understand their difficulties and do every bit to help them

Many international and national committees and NGOs also have been formed to aid research and support for HIV patients, like the International Partnership Against HIV/AIDS in Africa (IPAA). Although there is no cure or vaccine for AIDS, many drugs are also being created to prolong life in AIDS patients and to improve their life while they are alive and infected, such as Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART), and Post-Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP).

Although these measures have helped a bit, there is a lot that needs to be done. These drugs help reduce the sufferings of the infected people, but there still isn’t any drug that will actually prevent AIDS or cure it. The disease is still spreading despite all the education given to the people, and infected patients still live bad lives, usually facing distaste and ostracism from others. The fact is, the number of AIDS patients worldwide is still increasing, and although possible vaccines are on the horizon, we are a long way away from eradicating AIDS altogether, we’re barely able to curb it right now.