Juan Gallegos(Edison College)HIV

Science has increased a lot, allowing human beings to have better chances of living. Nowadays, medical science is capable of curing many sickness that before used to be mortal. However, with all the advance and progress medical science has made there is not a vaccine for HIV. 

This mortal virus is believed that has been around for long time. In 1959, a man residing in Africa died of a mysterious illness. Only decades later, after examining some blood samples taken from that man, was it confirmed that he actually died from complications related to an HIV infection.

The started of HIV/AIDS in the U.S began in 1981. In July of that year, the New York Times reported an outbreak of a rare form of cancer among gay men in New York and California. This “gay cancer” as it was called at the time was later identified as Kaposi’s sarcoma, a disease that later became the face of AIDS. About the same time, emergency rooms in New York City began to see a rash of seemingly healthy young men presenting with fevers, flu-like symptoms, and a rare pneumonia called Pneumocystis. This was the beginning of what has become the biggest health care concern in modern history. When the Centers for Disease Control reported the new outbreak they called it “GRID” (gay-related immune deficiency), stigmatizing the gay community as carriers of this deadly disease. However, cases started to be seen in heterosexuals, drug addicts, and people who received blood transfusions, proving the syndrome knew no boundaries. Twenty-eight years later the disease still plagues society.

Some statistics show:
 

Since the apparition of HIV many people have died. However, statistics show that less people is dying because of this virus. 

The important question is how people can prevent to get infected from HIV?These precautions are helpful:

• Do not have unprotected sex. Always use a latex condom. If you are allergic to latex, you can use polyurethane condoms. Natural skin (lambskin) condoms will not protect you.
• If you are a drug user, do not share needles, syringes or other equipment to inject drugs. Try to quit using drugs.
• If you suspect that you have HIV take a test, if the test results positive ask your doctor about treatment and be conscious that you have the virus, so do not go and have sex whit somebody without taking any precaution.

In conclusion, even with all the developing of science HIV still being a mortal disease. The key to combat this sickness is prevention. We might not have the capacity to destroy this virus but we do have the capacity to analyze and take responsible decisions about practicing safe sex. 

This entry was posted on 29. April 2009 at 22:25 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.