South Africa Aids Epidemic Essay Research Paper

South Africa Aids Epidemic Essay, Research Paper

THE SOUTH AFRICA AIDS EPIDEMIC

This is a paper on epidemics. I have focused on the ever increasing AIDS epidemic in South Africa. I cover what AIDS is and how it is contracted. The factors causing it to affect South Africa much worse than its surrounding neighbors, and what is happening to combat this modern epidemic

It is believed that the HIV virus, which causes AIDS, first originated from Africa decades ago, and today many would agree that this is the place where it is causing the most devastation. Nearly 27 million of the 36 million people infected with AIDS worldwide, are in Africa. This number is a similar amount of Europeans who died of the Bubonic Plague in the fourteenth century. The lifetime risk of dying from AIDS now is as high as 50%, and the epidemic is increasing at an alarming rate. South Africa has been hit especially hard. Ten to twelve percent of adults are infected with HIV leading to a total of more than 4.2 million adults and children infected with the virus. UNICEF reports note that almost one in four women aged between 15 and 24 are infected and one in ten men. The current president, Thabo Mbeki, suggests that poverty is the main cause of AIDS, but I believe that it is far from the only cause involved. In this paper I will discuss the world-wide AIDS problem with specific reference to the devastation it is causing in South Africa.

(In my interview with Tammy Oleson, the Director of Nurses of Hospices Health Care in Stuart, I asked her if she would compare the AIDS epidemic in South Africa to the bubonic plaque. She responded by saying that Aids is a viral epidemic that spreads as a result of human behavior. We can chose to modify our actions to prevent infection. The Bubonic Plaque was an epidemic caused by a bacteria. Infection spread amongst the people with no relations to lifestyle choices. However, both diseases have infected populations drastically.)

An epidemic is occurring when a disease attacks or affects many people simultaneously in a community or area. it is a widespread occurrence of a disease with a rapid development or growth. In today s world modern science has brought most of the major killer diseases, like Polio, under control. It has even eradicated some such as Smallpox, and so deaths due to once common outbreaks have greatly reduced. Through the development of science, cures and preventative measures have been found but it seems as soon as one is controlled another appears. This is the case with AIDS. It was unheard of 50 years ago, and is now a major world problem, so much so that we, The United States, have declared it a threat to national security.

Through such acts as widely available oral contraception, great scientific break through in itself, we have opened ourselves to attack by STD s, sexually transmitted diseases. This is also the drug age where intravenous injecting with dirty needles have helped diseases, which travel through blood as a medium, to increase in abundance. AIDS is spread through bodily fluids such as semen and blood. Therefore it is transferred person to person by sexual intercourse, blood transfusions, shared needles, and contaminated medical equipment.

Since the introduction of democracy in 1994, poverty in South Africa hasn t significantly changed, but AIDS has increased rapidly. In the early 1990 s AIDS was not a significant problem there. It was prevalent in Uganda and Cote D Ivoire on the West Coast. There are many factors which have influenced this huge rise in prevalence. It has gone from a constant 3% occurrence in pregnant women to a 20% occurrence today, these figures are taken from the Chris Haney Hospital. AIDS related diseases now account for most of the cases in this hospital.

One of the hopes of the South Africa s new found democracy is that it would bridge the gap between the poor Blacks and rich Whites, but this aim has become more difficult with HIV. A major factor affecting this is a hang up from South Africa and migrant labor to build the modern nation. In impoverished rural areas husbands take jobs in distant cities to support their families, for up to eleven months a year. The former white minority government wouldn t allow men to take their families with them, so today a large number of these workers, who are HIV positive due to exposure to commercial sex and alcohol, are returning home to die of AIDS. The wives of these men are taught to obey their husbands even if they know they have been unfaithful.

With the freedom that democracy has brought the AIDS problem has got worse not better. The HIV infection rate has accelerated due to the empowerment of the trade unions. The transportation system and infrastructure is more modern than in its neighboring countries, and because of this people move about much more easily, and the virus will naturally follow these individuals. The worse is yet to come as many of these people who are infected with HIV don t know it yet as they haven t developed symptoms, so they will feed an infection spiral, causing about 1700 new cases of HIV a day.

( Tammy Oleson, of Hospice in Stuart, said Reported cases of AIDS and HIV are beginning to resurface again in high numbers. Intravenous drug use remains deeply embedded in society and promiscuous sex continues especially among teenagers all around the world. Although, infections via