AIDS

Fever, headache, sore throat, swollen lymph glands, rash; symptoms of the common flu. However, unlike the common flu, a person infected with the HIV virus will soon be the victim of several worse symptoms, and possibly death. In years past, AIDS was never a big concern for many countries. However at this time, AIDS is becoming more prevalent in more countries. Lack of education and health care systems in developing countries compared to the ample supply here in the United States, provides for one reason as to why it has become such a common disease in developing countries. Due to the fact that this problem is becoming more common throughout the world, it is important to realize that this is an issue that the world needs to be aware of and involved in.

“You get up in the morning and eat breakfast with your three kids. One is already doomed to die in infancy. Your husband works 200 miles away, comes home twice a year and sleeps around in between. You risk your life in every act of sexual intercourse. You go to work past a house where a teenager lives alone tending young siblings without any source of income. At another house, the wife was branded a whore when she asked her husband to use a condom, beaten silly and thrown into the streets. Over there lies a man desperately sick without access to a doctor or clinic or medicine or food or blankets or even a kind word. At work you eat with colleagues, and every third one is already fatally ill. You whisper about a friend who admitted she had the plague and whose neighbors stoned her to death. Your leisure is occupied by the funerals you attend every Saturday. You go to bed fearing adults your age will not live into their 40s. You and your neighbors and your political and popular leaders act as if nothing is happening” (McGeary, Johanna). (I will not be using this whole quote in my paper, but I will have a portion just to show what it is like in certain developing countries when they have little health care provided.)

HIV is known a human immunodeficiency virus. A person becomes HIV positive when the virus attacks their T cells, which normally fights against illnesses and protects the immune system. However, if a person has HIV, it does not necessarily mean they have AIDS. A person is diagnosed with AIDS, or Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, when they become infected with a disease that is linked to HIV, such as pneumonia. A person can live a long life without problems if they are HIV positive; however, once they are diagnosed with AIDS, it becomes much more difficult, because at this point they will have diseases that cause fatalities (Global Health). Although this virus is becoming more common throughout the world, the knowledge of how it spreads is not known to many. Popular misconceptions on how the virus spreads include: through coughs and sneezes, or holding someone’s had that has HIV. However, these are absolutely false. One way HIV can be spread is during sexual intercourse if one is infected with the virus. Coming in contact with an open sore or cut on someone that has HIV is another way that the virus is spread, or through sharing needles that have punctured someone with the virus. A mother with HIV is also very likely to pass the virus on to her baby while she is pregnant, when the baby is born, and even through breast feeding, the baby is likely to be infected (DiPentima, Cecilia). This simple knowledge of how HIV and AIDS are passed from person to person is not known to many countries around the world. It is important for everyone to be educated on this issue in order to stop the tremendous rate at which it is spreading.
Collin Omundi, a twenty-eight year old Kenyan man has experienced the brutal effects of AIDS on his family. Over the past eleven years, Omundi has lost his parents, seven of his uncles, six of his aunts, and five of his cousins to AIDS. This young Kenyan “is a member of the Luo ethnic group, whose men have one of the highest AIDS death rates in Kenya. Twenty-four percent of Luo men are infected with HIV” (Bristol, Nellie) and experience the same tragedies that Collin Omundi has dealt with. Currently, there are approximately forty million cases of HIV/AIDS throughout the world. However, two-thirds of these cases are in Southern Africa (Bristol, Nellie.) In 2006, three million people died from this particular disease, but even more shocking, seventy two percent of those people were African (Bristol, Nellie). One may ask why so many tragic cases take place in countries in Africa, compared to the United States of America. The reason for this problem is due to the lack of health care and health education throughout the countries of Africa.

Although, many countries give money to developing countries such as Africa, what they really lack is health care systems and the knowledge about the virus. The effects of this particular virus are the worst in Africa, with a twenty-four percent rate of people with the virus. However, even with this large percentage of infections, only three percent of global health care workers help with this epidemic, and only one percent of the world’s physicians are caring for these patients (Garret, Laurie). With this minor number of healthcare workers providing help in Africa, they cannot assist many people that are infected with the virus. Only a small number of Africans receive the medical attention that they desperately need. An example that proves this is the leading causes of death in particular countries. In high income countries, AIDS is not even one of the top ten leading causes of death. In contrast, low income countries, which include most of the countries in Africa, suffer HIV/AIDS to be their third highest leading cause of death (World Health Organization). This proves that due to their lack of wealth, they cannot afford the health care systems that they should have.