HIV and AIDS Introduction It may be that becau

Major Factors Associated with HIV and AIDS

Much of the population became fixated on the fact that HIV appeared in the homosexual population and, at least during the early years of the disease, insisted on thinking of it as a "gay plague." This is not the case, however, nor is the disease solely associated with sexual activity.

HIV is the acronym for the human immunodeficiency virus. In other words, AIDS is caused by a virus that primarily impacts the human immune system. It took several years to identify this virus, and in some respects, the competition to identify it seemed almost more important to researchers than dealing with the affected population.

The HIV virus is transmitted through the exchange of bodily fluids, primarily during sexual activity and blood exchanges of various sorts. Victims of HIV have been identified as being infected through sharing needles, as with drug use, or in developing

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rican males. What appears to have changed is that people with HIV, and active AIDS, are living longer with that condition, possibly because of new drug treatments. Nonetheless, there are currently 223,000 adults and teens living with AIDS, which represents a 65% increase since early 1993. New cases continue to develop, too, with many of those new cases in the minority community. In 1996, the AfricanAmerican community accounted for 41% of new cases, while Hispanics represented 19% of new cases. Meanwhile, in the rest of the world, the 1990s has seen an increase in infections on all continents (Mann, 1993). The earliest problems were in Africa, but the disease has spread through Euroasia, Asia itself, and South America. The developed world has the facilities in place to begin to educate and treat for epidemic conditions, but much of Africa and Asia are overrun by the numbers of new infections and are unable to even take such simple measures as ensuring that all people have access to clean needles in health care settings. Thus, the infection rate is bound to continue to increase globally until the developed world, or the United Nations, provides some of the poorer countries with funds for education, purification of the blo
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Approximate Word count = 2396
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)