The Spread of HIV/AIDS And The World Efforts to Contain It
Most of us have heard of HIV/AIDS, but not many understand or know much about it. HIV stands for the human immunodeficiency virus, which in turn leads to AIDS, or the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. Beginning in 1980, the disease and loss of life was astounding. Nobody knew how it spread or how it was caused. The symptoms were seemingly scattered. So doctors and researchers did what they do they best: found patterns. The science field is one made out of logic and reasoning, but this virus could not reasonably fit into any other group of viruses. As a result, these patterns of symptoms proved essential for identifying the spread and containment. Further complicating the issue, the stigma surrounding the pattern (homosexual men) created another barrier between the problem and the answer. It got so bad that eventually people with the disease were ashamed and hid their issues, never admitting to the possible harm they could do to others. Nevertheless, the disease was named, at that time, GRID — Gay-Related Immune Deficiency. Without admitting to being gay, or understanding the possible risks of unprotected sex, the disease spread like wildfire.
HIV/AIDS functions mainly by attacking the white blood cells in your body that fight off infection. Essentially, one wouldn’t die from AIDS, but one would die from a possibly obscure infection that a healthy person would be able to fight off easily. One common sign of the possible infections is the appearance of melanoma like skin spots. As a result of the lack of white blood cells, the thymine dimers in the skin start to lack leading to burns and scars similar to those of melanoma. Another common sign of AIDS is the lack of symptoms at all. In general, viruses function by “hijacking” your functioning cell’s parts and replicating and then implementing faulty DNA into peoples normal cell DNA. As a result, with every new cell created, a new copy with faulty DNA is created, as well as more infecting viruses. This implanted DNA though is not always fatal. Sometimes people live with viruses their whole life and are not aware of it. Viruses become expressed when certain environmental stressors occur, leading to the transcription of that faulty DNA to create incorrect proteins that will eventually harm the bodies functioning systems. This is obviously an extremely dangerous disease and was very hard to identify as a sexually transmitted disease.
What about other options, are there any ways to prevent it? HIV/AIDS is spread through 6 different bodily fluids: vaginal fluid, rectal fluid, pre-seminal fluid, seminal fluid, blood, and breast milk. This obviously makes the disease open to many avenues of transmission if the correct precautions aren’t taken. The easiest way to prevent transmission is to first and foremost ensure one is having protected sex. Seeing that the largest number of cases is a result of unprotected sex, it is important to take the right preventative measures. Similar to malaria prevention pills that people take when traveling to a malaria-affected area, there is a drug people can take to lessen the risk of contracting HIV/AIDS when partaking in high-risk behavior. This drug is known as PrEP, or Pre-exposure prophylaxis, which functions by essentially protecting the T-cells in your body. Basically Truvada, the type of drug, acts as a sort of barrier to prevent the virus from attacking and hijacking healthy cells. In addition, to prevent the other avenues of transmission, there are numerous tests performed in blood banks to prevent contamination of the blood supply. For mothers that are HIV positive, a C-section is always performed, and precautions are taken to prevent breastfeeding.
In conclusion, the human immunodeficiency virus had killed thousands before its discovery. However, with the right equipment and knowledge, researchers and doctors now know the necessary steps to prevent the contraction of HIV without disrupting daily life. As a result, it is now extremely rare to see an infected person transmitting the disease, and even rarer, a person dying from it. As a whole, HIV was a powerful virus, but it has now been concurred by science. It is safe to say fear of the disease is now obsolete.
References
The Basics — PrEP [Blog post]. (2018). Retrieved from https://prepfacts.org/prep/the-basics/
Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) [Illustration]. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://aidsinfo.nih.gov/understanding-hiv-aids/glossary/325/human-immunodeficiency-virus
Kaplan, J. E. (n.d.). The Fight Against AIDS, Then and Now [Infographic]. Retrieved from https://www.webmd.com/hiv-aids/the-fight-against-aids-then-and-now
Nemo, L. (2018, August 12). How does PrEP, the HIV-Prevention medication, work? Retrieved March 28, 2020, from https://www.livescience.com/63307-prep-truvada-hiv-explainer.html
