With all the information that is being disseminated every day about HIV and AIDS, do you realize that there are actually 50,000 new cases of HIV diagnosed in the US every year? The CDC estimates that one in eight people do not know they are infected. They have not been tested. In the US the majority of new cases are with the men having sex with men group as well as young African American males.
The Foundation for AIDS research posts that there were 2.4 million new cases of HIV worldwide. What is morbid is that in 2014 1.2 million souls died from AIDS. They say that since the beginning of the pandemic almost 78 million have contracted HIV and there have been 39 million deaths. As of March 2015, around 15 million people living with HIV (41% of the total) had access to antiretroviral therapy.
Today’s youth in developed countries no longer worry about AIDS because of ART. Some of these wonder drugs have allowed patients to live full, happy lives. There is no cure for this virus and there are no cures for other sexually transmitted viruses. And it’s not like billions of dollars haven’t gone into research.
The US is one of the only ‘developed’ countries where individuals have to pay for their own healthcare. This includes prescriptions. Most have insurance that they must pay for out of their own pockets and many insurance companies have steep co-payments for certain drugs. Many of the newer drugs are not covered at all. Costs for ART can be over $2,000 per month. Most individuals in the US do not take home even close to that with minimum wages that can be as high as $600 per week in some states. In most states the minimum wage is closer to $320 per week.
In underdeveloped poor countries unless some charity or other program provides the medicine, those infected must die. It is a slow death. If you have ever lost a loved one to a debilitating illness like cancer, you know the toll it takes on the individual as well as the family.
Deaths from AIDS can be prevented by stopping the spread of HIV.
The stages of AIDS
HIV affects the body’s immune system, thus the name acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). In simple terms, your immune system works to keep you healthy. Some people are born with or develop immunities to certain illnesses. When you catch a cold your immune system was not able to fight off the virus. Maybe it was busy fighting off a more important illness.
When you have HIV, your immune system is compromised. You cannot fight some very important illnesses. However, there are three distinct stages in HIV.
The first stage is called Acute Infection. You had unprotected sex. Within two to four weeks you begin to have systems of a very severe case of influenza. Although not everyone experiences this, most do. The medical world calls this “acute retroviral syndrome” (ARS) or “primary HIV infection.” Your body is trying to fight the HIV virus.
This is the time you need to be tested. This is the time you can pass the virus to your partners. This is the time you need to begin to take ART.
Next comes the Latency Stage. The virus is still reproducing, but not as fast as it originally did. Most individuals in this stage will have no symptoms at all. If you begin ART treatments, you can live to a ripe old age. Without medication you may expect to live as long as 10 years within this bubble. Not all people last the full 10 years. But still 10 years is possible. Just because you are symptom-free and not on any type of medication, you can still pass the virus onto your partner just as you could in the first stage.
The last stage is AIDS. Your immune system no longer works and you catch every illness that comes your way. These are called opportunistic illnesses and they do not discriminate according to race, religion, age or ethnicity. Without the expensive drugs, you can expect to live up to three years. However, the quality of your life will be poor.
When you read in the news that someone has died from AIDS, it is not the virus itself that killed them. It is usually another illness that the person could not fight. Pneumonia is a good example.
The question of the day is, why would someone put themselves and their families through this when using a condom would have been the best decision they could have made?
