AIDS in Africa :: HIV AIDS essays research papers

The AIDS epidemic has reached disastrous proportions on the celibate of Africa. Over the past two decades, two thirds of the more than 16 billion people in the world give with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (human immunodeficiency virus), which causes AIDS, spanking in sub-Saharan Africa. It is now seat to the largest number of people infected, with 70 percent of the worlds human immunodeficiency virus infected population. The problem of this ongoing human tragedy is that Africa is also the least equipped region in the world to cope with all the challenges posed by the human immunodeficiency virus virus. In order understand the social and economic consequences of the disease, it is important to study the human relationship between poverty, the global response, and the effectiveness of AIDS prevention, both government and lot roots. Half of the worlds cases are found in what is referred to as the AIDS belt, a chain of countries in eastern and southern Africa that is home to two p ercent of the global population. The main vehicle for spreading HIV throughout Africa is straight person intercourse. In contrast, this is the opposite compared to the U.S. where the virus is usually contagious through homosexual intercourse or contaminated syringes shared by drug users. Besides heterosexual intercourse, HIV transmission through transfusion and contaminated medical equipment is common in sub-Saharan Africa. Africans infected with HIV die much sooner after diagnosis than HIV infected people in other parts of the world. In industrialized countries, the natural selection time after diagnosis of AIDS ranges from 9 to 26 months, moreover in Africa the survival time for patients is 5 to 9 months (UNAIDS 3). Factors, such as lower access to health care, poorer quality of health care services, poorer levels of middling health and nutrition, and greater exposure to pathogens that cause infection all throw to the shorter survival in Africa. It is difficult to stop the flood of AIDS cases in Africa because it is not yet known by researchers the factors that contribute to outstanding prevalence of the disease among heterosexuals. This diagnosis will help determine how likely it is that heterosexual epidemics will spread to Asia or the West. Even though AIDS is hard researched, its origin still remains a partial mystery. It is know that HIV is a zoonosis, a human disease acquired from animals. The virus evolved from a simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV) a type of slow virus found by nature in monkeys and apes which, while not harming the host, produces diseases in other primates (Caldwell 97).